


Stray Light

by BesoBesoBesitos (CoronaTheBee), CoronaTheBee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captivity, F/M, Slow Burn, secret apprentice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23862598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoronaTheBee/pseuds/BesoBesoBesitos, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoronaTheBee/pseuds/CoronaTheBee
Summary: A force-sensitive lives in isolation aboard the Stray Light, traveling the galaxy in service of a mysterious master.
Relationships: Ben Solo/Original Female Character(s), Ben Solo/Reader, Kylo Ren/Ben Solo/Reader, Kylo Ren/Original Female Character(s), Kylo Ren/Reader
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

  


“This is an exceedingly poor idea.” The protocol droid commented dryly. “Master—“

  


“Won’t know anything.” I cut in, double checking that the biometric scanner for my quarters was activated. 

  


“It is unwise to decide today—of all days— to indulge this foolishness, miss.” The protocol droid, PZ4-S, droned on as it shadowed me toward the airlock. 

  


I hummed a vague agreement, standing on tiptoe to peer through the thin strip of a viewport at the end of the docking station. “It has to be today, Zsas.”

  


He was coming today. If the door was opened today, using his code, it wouldn’t flag a security breech. I hoped. Either way, I had a feeling. 

  


Rather than trying to explain the spine-mind-tingle that was driving me to take such a risk, I ask, “What is that old adage you’re always quoting to me? ‘History remembers the bold?’”

  


“The second half of that bit of Mandalorian wisdom, if you will recall, is ‘Time buries the meek and foolhardy.’”

  


A laugh bubbles up and out of me at the unexpected humor. “It is not!” 

  


I scoop up a prepared pack from the floor and start an override sequence on the cobbled splicer attached to the control panel. 

  


“The first part was correct,” he blustered. “And maybe they would have won their war if they had been a little less—“

  


“Foolish?” I finish. It’s the protocol droid’s favorite insult. Favorite word all together, maybe. Probably even his most used if you included all of the variations on it that he used. Foolish. Foolhardy. Foolishness. I listed to myself, trying and failing to ignore the nerves that were building as the splicer’s algorithm whirred. 

  


Maybe the code breaker wouldn’t even work. Maybe the feeling was wrong. Maybe all this planning was for nothing and I would just head back to my quarters without—

  


A soft chime sounds and the hatch at the end of the docking station slides open. A rush of air, heavy with exhaust and ozone, pours into the hall. For a moment I am frozen, then the invisible knot behind my ribs lurches. I grin.  _ It worked. _

  


“Mistress, I would strongly advise that—“

  


“If he gets here before I get back, just stall!” I shout over my shoulder to Zsaz, who is tottering in place, eye-lamps flashing in dismay. 

  


“My programming forbids me from being untruthful to Master. I will not be able to stall the inevitable, miss. I beg of you to reconsider!”

  


“It will be fine, Zsaz! Tell him I’m at the market. It isn’t a lie. That shouldn’t interfere with your directives.” I call, even as I stop at the seal to stare out into the spaceport. “Besides, it won’t matter. I can be back before he ever knows I was gone.”

  


The protocol droid dithers near the hatch, unable to follow as I slip into the sparse crowd outside. When I glance back over my shoulder a moment later, he’s closed the heavy shielding and the  _ Stray Light _ is once again an unassuming yacht among the dozens docked nearby. 

  


The battered exterior of the ship is at odds with the well maintained interior. A drab and peeling paint job along with expertly disguised modifications allow for the impression that it is what it appears to be—a middling civilian vessel with no particularly appealing features. Aside from anonymity, maybe. But under the cable chases and inside the engine rooms, the hundreds of modifications large and small that Master has made are impossible to hide. I liked to believe I’d found them all, marooned in the boredom and safety of the Stray Light. I’d had years aboard the yacht to inspect every nook and cranny. But the same niggling feeling that drove me to be reckless today tells me that, like Master, the  _ Stray Light _ has more secrets than I may ever uncover. 

  


As if encouraged by my thoughts, the pull behind my breastbone gives a sharp tug. I rub my knuckles over the spot roughly, fighting the breathlessness that follows. It’s so insistent. I’ve never felt it like this before. I stumble, blinking at the stream of curses a Rhodian spits at me as he stomps past. I’d stopped abruptly. I feel for the scarf I’d tucked around my shoulders and pull it into a hood that shrouds my face. 

  


Breathing deeply I reach with the invisible limb that feels the pulsing, excited warble of energy that’s ringing out from somewhere nearby. It stirs, suddenly stronger and clearer. My body moves like I’ve navigated the maze of suspended catwalks and battered hangars a million times before—I weave through the travel-worn crews and station staff without so much as a glance back toward the  _ Stray Light _ . 

  


The pull tugs me along until I’ve left the dockyard behind, and I’m winding my way through a makeshift bazaar. What had once been a row of service stations was overrun by hover carts overflowing with goods, droid pulled rickshaws, and the greasy smell of quick serve food. The curve of the exterior walls, when I can see them through the thickening crowds, are the only indication that I am still on a craft. They arc into a dome that meets high above, with rows of lighting panels cobbled together to brighten the cavernous port. The effect is a sort of muted twilight, smudges of neon lighting the stalls and stands. 

  


A new sensation, so thrilled that it seems like a sigh of happiness, skates down my spine. I’m close. It feels like a low level current buzzing along the base of my skull. I slow as much as I can in the crush of bodies. I drift to the edge of the flowing foot traffic and let my eyes drag over each pullcart and table. 

  


I turn my head sharply to see a knot of vendors half-hidden behind a pull kiosk selling flash fried blobs of batter. I wind my way closer. The sensation of  _ right-right-right _ rises to a sort of crescendo as I spot the smallest stall. An elderly togruta with a damaged montral sits crouched in the shadow of her cart. Chains and baubles litter the racks and web over her colorful head until the entire shop seems to glitter in the dim light. Her dark eyes watch me. 

  


I draw closer in a near trance, until the touch of something smooth and cool under my left hand makes me gasp. My fingers close around the pendant of one of the countless necklaces. The pull disappears with a fizzle that makes me shiver. In its place sparks a thrum, calm and quiet enough to be missed. I pry open my fingers and see a clear bit of stone. Narrow as my smallest finger and broken at one end. Barring the snapped tip, the gem is whole, without even a bore hole for wearing. Instead a coil of leather holds it in a tight hitch to lay flat like a horizon against a wearer’s neck. 

  


Blinking, still dazed, I ask, “How much?”

  


The woman studies me for a long moment, but doesn’t seem surprised by my strangeness. “That one has no price.” 

  


“It’s not for sale? Please, I-“

  


Her raspy voice cuts off my pleading. “I did not say it was not for having. Only that it had no price.” 

  


I could feel a scowl steal over my expression. Before I could argue, a staticky blast comes over the hangar’s speakers. The uppermost lighting panels blink and begin to scroll Aurebesh and Outer Rim Basic. It was the mid cycle announcements. Most of the ports where the Stray Light docked had them. Or so I presumed. Our berths and the layout of the hubs had meant I saw and heard them from the viewports only occasionally. 

  


A sudden chill creeps over me. I’ve been gone too long. Plunging one hand into the pouch at my waist, I fist as many credits as I can hold and thrust them toward the old toruga. Her face is solemn under her white markings as she shakes her head once and pushes my hand away. “It’s yours.”

  


I shake my head back, ready to drop the money into one of the baskets that line her stall. But when she speaks again, her eyes look as unfocused as I’d felt on my way here. 

  


“It called to you.” She explains, fixated on some distant point behind me. “Go now.” 

  


I get a sinking feeling, like the sort that steals over me when I dream something that feels true. I swallow reflexively and step back.  **_Go._ ** Her voice seems to echo in my ears as I stumble further away from her dark-eyed gaze.  **_Go._ ** I am swept along by the current of bodies, and soon I cannot see the old woman at all. 

  


I race to retrace my steps. The necklace is steady in my palm, even as I give up on subtlety and sprint back toward the docks. My makeshift hood gives way and my braid tugs uncomfortably, tangled and overlong. It thumps against my back as I twist and turn, slipping through the crowd until I see the ship. Grey and small as I left it. Has he arrived? Am I too late? 

  


I shove the necklace over my head, tucking it out of sight, and pull a prepacked market bag from my pack. All without slowing. I fish a communicator from the bottom of the bag and hail Zsas. “I’m back, open the—“ 

  


But before I can even finish the transmission, the airlock twists like an aperture and retracts. A mass of black fills my vision as a vice grip slams down on my mind. 

  


“I was at the market.” I whisper.  **_True_ ** , I infuse the thought with it. It’s the truth. I don’t acknowledge, even to myself, that it’s an omission. I’d been to the market. I even had a bag. I picture it in my mind's eye even though it hangs from my shoulder in plain sight. 

  


Master plucks the thought from my head. A flat sound comes from his vocalizer. Like a burst of static before he says, “Show me.” 

  


But rather than wait and watch me open the bag, he steps back and I stumble into the relative safety of the vessel. I lock my eyes on the ground, breathing carefully through my nose to counteract the disorientation of feeling a mind so close alongside my own. I paw at the bag on my shoulder. In my rush, I fumble it and it falls to my feet, spilling jogan and kava fruits. Before I can stoop to gather them, a wave of emotion rolls over me. My shoulders hike at the overwhelming spike of adrenaline that follows. 

  


“You left the ship  _ without permission _ for this?” He draws the words out until they sound accusatory even through the filter of the mask. 

  


“It was foolishness on her part, Master.” PZ4-S chatters, appearing near the bulkhead that separated the sleeping quarters from the common area. “I warned her against leaving the ship. However in her past communiques she has requested a wider assortment of produce.” 

  


I squeeze my eyes shut. He was trying to lie for me, in his own way. I felt a rush of gratitude for the droid. The only way to get away with a lie to Master was to bury it in truths, to avoid thinking about the answer he wanted. Figuring out how to circumvent PZ4-S strict programming had been excellent practice. And somewhere along the way the protocol droid had become a companion as well as a tutor and translator. 

  


The terrible black helmet turned slowly to face the droid. “Is that right?” 

  


His voice was calm, but chewed at the edges by the modulator. It was so hard to read him. The overflow of his emotions in my mind were better indicators, if I could overcome the intensity of them quickly enough to understand them. They came and went, twisting around him like an awful aura. 

  


PZ4-S was still listing instances, with dates and quantities, of my requested fruit shipments. 

  


Master steps suddenly closer. I study the texture of his combat gear rather than meet the blank stare of the mask that looms overhead. I can feel him probing the space between our thoughts, waiting for me to let slip whatever it was that he was expecting. I had the sudden image of being held between the jaws of a patient predator. 

  


I pull in a long, low breath. Then a soft ping from my breastbone makes me go still. I move before I can form a thought, catching the pendant as he tugs it free of my scarves—clinging to the crystal as he levitates it effortlessly toward his open palm. I can feel it react beneath my touch, struggling like a living thing against Master’s call. 

  


“Stop!” I shout. I’d never raised my voice to him before. Had rarely spoken to him at all but I was suddenly desperate. “It’s only-“

  


There was a heavy quality to the room, as if gravity had shifted. It felt like my ears were full of fluid. He was holding, not releasing his grip on the pendant, but not wrenching it away either. Not like I knew he could. He was waiting. But I didn’t know what he wanted. I just wanted him to let go of the stone. It was afraid and I was—

  


“Give in to your anger.” His voice was a rumble. Gravelly and harsh. “Let it come.”

  


The stone jerked in my grasp, the facets digging into the joints of my clawed fingers as I struggled to hold on. I shook my head mutely. I wasn’t going to do that. Didn’t want to use it. 

  


“You’re afraid.” He spits, angry at last. Even through the mask that much was clear. “Fear is a weakness.”

  


He flexes his hand and the crystal is ripped from me instantly. I gasp at the discomfort of its absence. Curling my hands into fists, I bite my tongue to keep quiet as he inspects the necklace. There’s a keening sound in my mind, faint but impossible to ignore. Like a siren. Like a scream. 

  


“I had,” I begin, struggling to find the words I want. “I had a-a feeling that I should go out. So I did. I found it in the market.” 

  


“A feeling?” He asks. “You cannot face your own abilities. Cannot even name them. What use is this to you?” His voice is blank despite the intentional cruelty. 

  


I know what he wants. But I won’t lash out. “It called to me.” Is all I can say. 

  


He turns the crystal over between his leather clad fingers. It seems so small in his grasp. He focuses on the broken end, where it is ragged and it’s energy feels weakest. He funnels his focus into a point and presses. 

  


“No!” I cling to his forearm, yanking with all my might and throwing my weight down. Anything to break his hold on the crystal that is shrieking in my mind. His free hand moves almost lazily, as if he’s brushing something from his sleeve. I slip, stumbling under the weight of his force push. Gritting my teeth I leap again, digging my fingertips into his gauntlet. 

  


I can feel the energy surging, responding to his call smoothly as he molds it into another wave. This one large enough to send me across the ship, if I don’t act—I tug at the energy he’s pooling. I can’t win head-to-head against his control. I can only delay it long enough to open the floodgates. The force rushes up to meet me when I open my mind. 

  


It lays like a translucent web, infinitely detailed the longer I study it.  _ Focus.  _ **_There._ ** My hands slide up the armored glove until I feel it. An intersection in the subtle web. A weakness. I shove my fingers down hard on the point. It cracks under my touch and Master recoils. 

  


The moment is all I need to slip my smaller hands beneath his hold and tear the crystal free. I spring back, curling over the necklace like a wild creature, cornered. 

  


He watches, helmet matte in the bright lighting of the common room. It’s pitted and dented with wear, more than it had been before I think. Mind racing and heart beating out of my chest. Why am I worried about that? It doesn’t matter. I’m probably dead. I wait for the roar of his saber. But it doesn’t come. 

  


Instead he breaks the stare to inspect his gauntlet. “So you have improved.”

  


I nod tersely. The web glimmers in the periphery of my vision. Distracting. Overwhelming. I want to screw my eyes shut. I want to sleep until it slips out of my consciousness again, back to wherever it hides when I ignore it. Instead I stagger when he drags the crystal back into his grasp again in a smooth, unavoidable pull. 

  


“You’ll have it back when you’ve earned it.”

  


I rock onto my heels, head pounding. He isn’t hurting it, I tell myself. As long as he doesn’t try to shatter it again. I watch balefully as he tucks it into his robes. 

  


“Come.” 

  


He leads me to the meditation chamber. The large spherical room is the heart of the ship. He drops into a crouch near the plain cushion that is positioned in its center. I fold myself into position and wait. Already dreading the command I know is coming, I grind my back teeth together in some small defiance. 

  


“Center yourself.” 

  


When I’ve managed, he seems distant. As if his voice is echoing from a great distance. 

  


“Begin.” 

  


The touch against my temples is like grabbing onto a live wire. My concentration slides and the web is there again, behind my eyes this time. I try to reel back but he holds me in place with little apparent effort. 

  


“Don’t fight it.” 

  


I struggle to center myself against the frustration that’s building inside me. The force swirls around me in a maelstrom. The web splinters, tessellates until it’s hypnotic. As if there is some pattern there, discernible if I study it long enough, if I just look more closely. It pulls at me and I feel myself slipping away and dissolving into its complexity. His touch is the only anchor point. 

  


“Who gave you the crystal?” 

  


The question appears to me from the whorl of energy that envelops me. The strange old togruta floats into my thoughts. Another mind, expansive and chaotic, so near my own—turns the image over. Studies it. I blur the memory as much as I can. Choose to remember the way her collection had gleamed in the half light. How I had admired a bangle carved of what looked like wroshyr wood. The appealing smell of the fried dough sold nearby, spiced with something warm and distantly familiar. I try not to remember the pattern of her head tails and markings or the unusual shape of her montrals. 

  


The fingertips on my face shift, burrow into my loose braid until they nearly ring my crown. His palms are flat against the vulnerable skin of my temples. I jerk in his hold but he is insistent. “Did she see your face?” 

  


I think of the scarves, how I’d wreathed my face to form a hood. I’d worn non-descript clothes, taken a nonsense path to and from the ship. 

  


“No.” I flinch when the lie ripples the energy between us. His fingers twitch and pull the hair tangled between them. 

  


I admit, “I’m not sure.” 

  


He says nothing, but I can faintly feel him form a decision. 

  


“Please.” I say, weak from the overload on my senses. Afraid for the woman I’d only known for a moment. 

  


His only response is another question. “The feeling. Was it a dream?”

  


I don’t respond. I hate sharing them, hate discussing them. It’s as if admitting that they exist at all draws more of them to me. 

  


“Show me.” He says again, voice different. Coaxing? Not as mechanical. 

  


He hadn’t spoken aloud, I realize. He’d bridged our minds closely enough that he’d thought it and I’d heard it as surely as if he had spoken. But I can’t quite remember what it sounded like. Just that it had been different. Deep, almost crooning. I wait, hopeful he’ll speak again. Intrigued by the sound of his unmasked voice—I’d never seen him without the mask. Never heard anything but the vocalizer. 

  


My curiosity has a shape in the energy between us. It fizzes like one of the fussy Coruscanti sodas I’d seen advertised on the holonet. It’s faintly hued. Violet, I think. Then I feel his thoughts roll over my own, directing them. 

  


I draw back, surprised to find my hands gripping his wrists. They’re too broad. My fingers barely wrap halfway around their corded width. I glare up into the viewport of his mask and growl, “No.”

  


Anger whips from him like a haze. Red. I can still see it, steeped as we are together in the force, in this meditation sphere. It isn’t directed at me, I realize faintly. It’s focused generally. Twined with steely determination. 

  


“You think someone planted the idea.” I watch the moods shift over him, thorough him. “Is that possible?”

  


“Yes.” He admits. “For some.”

  


“You suspect it.” I nod, still adrift. Sure even when he doesn’t confirm it. My thoughts are buoyed along on the currents of energy. It doesn’t feel like I’m reading his thoughts actively. Can’t see them shaping in his mind the same way that he can see mine when he’s inside my head. “Who?”

  


He doesn’t answer. “The dream.” He insists again. 

  


I balk. The surge of fear and anxiety stirs the force and creates a sort of ripple effect that loops backward until it’s dragging me under. The web becomes a net made of stars that are minds, connected by thoughts and emotion. It’s drowning me. 

  


Panic swamps me. It’s coral colored, jagged and brittle and everywhere. I wheeze a thin, desperate sound. “I don’t—“ 

  


“Enough.” The voice that is his-and-not comes again. “Center yourself.” 

  


I try to sip breaths when I want to gasp them. My hands ache from their grip on my master. One of his wrists, the one without the gauntlet, I realize—is warm through the thin fabric of his sleeve. I feel it flex as he shifts until his thumbs are pressed side by side against the center of my forehead. Like an anchor point. 

  


_ This mind is yours _ . I think, repeating it until it is all I can remember. Until the billions of thoughts and minds surrounding the ship are distant once more. My next breath is nearly a sob. 

  


“The dream.” He repeats. More forcefully this time. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t corral my thoughts. Still, the memory slips forward. 

  


_ The haphazard market, thick with pedestrians. Noon hour updates scrolling over a grimy light panel. A shining something, buried in junk. Light pouring across the surface of a gem.  _ **_Go._ ** _ The voice of a woman cracked the stillness. Urgent, rasping.  _ **_Go!_ ** __

  


He draws back, and the vacuum that he creates feels cold. I catch myself on my hands, tumbling forward as he marches out of the meditation chamber. His anger and hatred are stoked into something towering. Roiling under his skin as his fists clench at his sides. It’s almost palpable. He pauses near the airlock, but doesn’t turn back. “Move the ship.”

  
PZ4-S gives an obedient response, but I hardly hear it. I slump into the nearest seat and press my pounding head into the padding of the headrest. I can hear the protocol droid bleating orders at the mute astromech that controls the navigation systems. But I can’t bring myself to so much as I lift my face from the cushion. I’m clammy and nauseated. The force teems around me, trailing over my skin as thoughts spiral past. Some louder than others. More insistent. It’s all so overwhelming that I have to scramble to the head, retching and trembling long after the  _ Stray Light _ jumps into the nearest hyperspace lane. 


	2. Chapter 2

The dream begins with the impression of waiting. I’m standing in a meadow filled with high grasses. The blades are deeply green and the sky is cool grey. When the breeze comes, it smells sweet and heavy with rain. It stirs the grasses, whipping the thin stalks until they move like water—ripples and waves. They brush my lowest ribs and when I spread my arms, they tickle like feathers. I smile, trailing slowly toward something on the horizon. I feel like I’m floating instead of walking. 

I can’t quite feel the leaves under my fingers but I know they’re waxy. I know that if I crushed one of the blunt lobes between my fingers it would pop like a bubble full to bursting. The knowledge is just there, unquestioned. Hanging in my mind like I’d learned it from experience. I could smell the peppery green scent of them, crushed under my heels. Just like I know the voice calling to me in the distance. They’re calling me by a name I don’t recognize. 

The dream changes, folds in on itself and warps. Expands and snaps into focus and I’m watching a hand that is not my own as it tracks across a page. The brush pen is pinched between thick fingers with blunt nails. The ink is milky, almost pearlescent, and a shade short of black. The prose unfurling under measured strokes is repetitive. A meditation guide, but the peace I’m searching for won’t come. I’m afraid and confused. I’m angry. 

The anger throbs in my chest like a second pulse, stoked higher when I recognize it. My shoulders clench until the muscles ache. Someone is expecting me. They’re just past the simple wooden door behind me. I’m scribing the words as slowly as I can to avoid them. 

A scream splinters the quiet. It’s long and low, like a wail. The hand writing mantras disappears in a blink. The world spins, lurches. I stumble, land face down in the grime of an abandoned street. More desperate shouts join ragged weeping. The scream cuts off like a switch has been flipped. I scrabble until I’m on my knees. Bodies press into me. Modulated voices are barking orders but I can’t hear enough to understand over the panic of the crowd. 

The mob thins and I see flashes of bright white armor. Stormtroopers. The black slashes on their helmets seem to grin. They’re herding the crowd into a pleading, terrified knot. An order, and they open fire. I gag on the hot, sour flavor of bile. Bright red rounds streak by, countless, until a pile of the dead wreathes my knees. 

I clutch my chest, my belly, waiting for the pain of a landed shot. But there’s only the crackling roar of Master’s saber. It buzzes, unsteady and raw. Red light fills my vision and I’m staring down at a togruta. Her face isn’t familiar but I see the time worn jut of bone over her right ear. A broken montral. Just as I expected, just as I’d been looking for. The saber rattles in its casing, shuddering in Master’s fist. He raises the blade. 

My vision shifts. All I can see is the acceptance in her aged face. She is serene as she stares beyond her executioner. Into middle distance and the unknown, where her liquid black eyes catch mine. She won’t let me look away. Her rasping voice echoes as she begins to chant, “I am one with the force. The force is with me. I am one-“

The blade falls. 

I scream. 

Master turns, shoulders heaving. I can hear the mechanical sound of his breathing. The catch as he jerks to a hard stop. The impression of the voice comes again. A shadow, darker than the space between stars, pours over his mask like oil. The darkness creeps into every crevice and when it finally slips beneath his mask, flares like a bolt of electricity. He seizes. 

I jolt awake. The air in my bunk feels thick and staticky. My desk groans and jitters against its moorings. A stray cup flies into the far corner, clattering and ringing hollowly. I kick furiously at my bedding until all my limbs are free. I press my lips together, breathing raggedly through my nose. Clenching my teeth, I press my tongue to the top of my mouth to fight the chattering. My throat feels raw like I’ve been screaming for hours. 

But then, of course I had been. Dreams, again. Just like I’d expected and dreaded. 

I curl into an angry ball and ride out the queasiness and disorientation. I try to ignore the temptation of examining the dizzying visions. They’re half-remembered as it is. If I give in to them, if I linger on them they’ll keep coming. That’s what I tell myself as I count the rivets of the weld that fuses the bunk into the wall. 

Thirty-two, thirty-three. Instead of the next number, I remember. She disappeared. The old woman who gave me the crystal. When Master had struck her down, she had blinked out of the dream. What did that mean? Gone like a flicker, like a play of light. Was it literal? A sign? An ache blooms across the bridge of my nose, and quickly spreads behind my eyes. 

My face feels sticky. Sweat is plastering my hair to my neck and cheeks. I push myself up and out of bed with a groan, headed for the refresher when my door retracts. A companion droid rolls in, giving a shrill whistle and a chorus of beeps like concerned tutting. I drop a hand on top of its domed head, tweaking its antenna. “Hey, Beso.” 

B8-S0 trills, vocalizer tripping into a flat overloaded sound then clicking as it resets. The characteristic, rapid-fire error sequence sounds like a smacking kiss. Beso, as I called him, was made of spare and—in the case of his audio hardware—slightly defective parts. He had a few other minor malfunctions, but he’d been my first creation. As if on cue, Beso bangs into the desk as he tries to track my path across the room. He reels, chirping and gyrating to keep his balance on the sphere that makes up his lower half. “Stay here.” I point to the ground for emphasis. 

He harrumphs a few more low beeps, but obeys. He idles, swaying to a stop near my bed. Pointedly beyond where I’d specified, but I don’t argue with him. Instead I slump into the refresher with a groan. 

Forehead pressed into the smooth sheet of metal, I let the sonic sequence wash over me with a rhythmic hum. The process would leave me clean, but ozone-scented. I grimace. I’d asked Zsas to refill the reservoir tank when we’d docked. I was sure he had. But I hadn’t wanted to waste it so soon. There was only ever enough for a handful of quick rinses. Water was a luxury in space travel, and the Stray Light was unique for having a reserve at all. I savored them and treated them like special occasions. 

As the sonic beam winds down, a heavy thunk startles me. It comes again, along with a distant but distinct trill. B8-S0. I roll my eyes to the ceiling, reaching for patience. He was angry with me. I’d deactivated him yesterday while he was recharging in his dock. And he was evidently going to hold a grudge over it. 

I step out into my room again, swaying on tip toe to avoid being rolled over by the pushy droid. “You know why.” I mutter to his indignant stream of chatter as I dress for the day. “He visited. So you had to stay out of sight. That’s the rule.” 

Master was more than likely aware that I had built a droid of some sort. My orders were cleared through him before they were placed or fulfilled. He’d seen the list of parts and small library of manuals I’d requested. He’d never expressly forbidden it. Still, the little droid had a way of pricking even the most even of tempers. I preferred not to tempt fate. Instead I hid Beso when Master visited. And, because the companion droid had little-to-no self preservation programming, I “hid” him by putting him into inactive mode behind my quarters’ biometrical lock. 

Beso reels along behind me, still clicking and beeping his displeasure, as I set about my daily routine. The chronometer in the galley says it’s still too early in the cycle for anything but sleep, but if I laze all day like I want to, I risk slipping into another dream. The thought makes me bruise the kava fruit I’m dicing, but I scoop up what is salvageable and stow the rest for steeping in tea. 

Once I’ve added so many toppings to my porridge that it’s overfilling my bowl, I fold myself into the nook by the viewport that spans one wall of the common area. To amuse myself while the mixture cools, I trace approximations of my favorite star maps. I pretend that nuts and fruits are stars and planets. I sprinkle sweetener and toasted spices for asteroid belts and nebulae. By the time I’ve completed my masterpiece, my cereal is half-cold and over seasoned. But still delicious. I cram another bite and watch the void drift by outside the viewport. 

“Think we’re headed somewhere tropical, Beso?” I spoon an extra clump of spun sugar, and grumble, “After all this, I think I deserve a treat.” 

The droid whistles in agreement. Most of his hard feelings are already forgotten as he rambles through the galley toward the cockpit. Probably to bother the astromech. The sleek black and chrome thing was state of the art, but eerily silent. It, presumably, had no communication features. Or at least it had never responded to anything I’ve said or interfaced into it. In basic or binary. Zsas assured me that it was simply a remotely controlled piloting system incapable of human interaction. Beso refused to be convinced. Instead the little droid spent an inordinate amount of time holding one sided conversations with the astromech. 

I snort. He was persistent. Fishing an areca nut from the mix, I called to Zsas, “Where are we headed, anyway?”

“Ossus.”

I sputter, jerking to attention so quickly that I bang my knee on the table and send my bowl skittering toward the edge. I catch it before it falls and hug it to my chest as I search the cabin. 

A new, slim holodeck is sitting in the common area near the vidscreen. Its accompanying bank of hardware is flashing with an incoming signal. Zsas must have installed it yesterday. A hazy blue figure rises from the center console. Master appears life sized and cowled—an intimidating figure even as the image flickers unsteadily. The projection is fuzzy but his voice is clear as he adds, “Your mission is to find an object buried within the ruins. You will deliver it to me.”

I swallow tightly at the news. I preferred isolation. The more steeped an area was in the force—the more likely my control was to slip. I must have hesitated too long. 

“You are conflicted.” 

I nod slowly, torn between standing and revealing that I was wearing non-standard issue basics—or remaining seated while I spoke to my master. After a moment of hesitation, I set aside the bowl and rise. My bare feet and the cold that sleeps into them from the grated flooring is something to concentrate on, something to make it easier to ignore the urge to tug at my high waisted leggings or the cropped shirt I’d slept in. I hadn’t expected to speak to him so soon. Certainly had not expected a holo audience. 

His image flickers, skipping and glitching irregularly. When it settles he says in his steely voice, “You will not fail me.” 

All that there is left to say is: “Yes master.”

I duck my head into a brief bow of respect and wait for the holo to flicker out. Usually he sent curt text instructions for my training regime, or packaged pre-programmed orders for Zsas or the astromech about our ever changing destinations. A visit and a hologram briefing within a cycle was unheard of. 

Instead he asks, “Did you dream?”

“Of the togruta.” I cannot find a reason to lie, not when the visions would haunt me for a week or more now that one had slipped through. “Of her. . .death.”

He only waits, perhaps for more detail. Perhaps because he is gauging rather or not to believe me. I wait for confirmation, or any indication of whether or not the dream had been a premonition. But he offers no clues. 

“And of more, but they did not seem like present-day. Echoes.” I struggle to explain. “Memories? I can’t be certain.” 

“Document them.” He orders, waving an imperious hand and stepping closer to his side of the projector. “I expect a report by the end of the cycle.”

I mutter an obedient, “Yes master.” 

For a moment he seems to hesitate. “You lack focus. Find it, harness your anger and overcome your fear.”

I stare into the blackness of his deeply cowled mask and nod. His instruction never changes. But the pace of my improvement is glacial at best. 

He clenches a fist and a corner of my mind tingles like I’m struggling to remember something. I fold my hands behind my back in an imitation of parade rest, twisting my fingers into the hem of my top to avoid massaging my temples. More dreams? Or something else? The web that is my visualization of the force suddenly overlays my sight. My control is slipping again, even in the mental quiet of the Stray Light. Going planetside in this state will be a waking nightmare. 

“When you have retrieved the object from Ossus, I have further need of you.” 

I squint my best approximation of a respectful expression, eager to end the call. He meant a battle meditation, which would be even more grueling than it usually was if the mission at Ossus went as poorly as I feared it would. Tightening my grip on my own wrists until I could feel bruises forming, I nod again. “Of course, Master.” 

“The protocol droid has a communicator. Untraceable, with an emergency frequency.” 

A distress beacon? My unease spikes and the porridge seems to curdle in my stomach. What awaited me on that planet? Not only had my master never assigned a planetside mission—he’d also never offered me a direct line of communication. Now, between the communicator and the holodeck, I suddenly had two. 

“You were confident enough to venture into the market on Faos Station. Were you not?”

“I was.” I admit. 

Before I can add anything more his presence flashes and he glances aside, as if he is reacting to something on his end of the connection. “The beacon is for emergency extraction only. Understood?”

“Understood.” 

He is gone almost before I reply. But before the image fizzles out the right side of an armored figure comes near enough that it, too, is projected. The combat gear is distinctive. A Knight of Ren. The feed is too blurred to tell which. 

I work my fingers loose from the knot I’ve stretched into my shirt. Master is gone. Mine is the only organic mind near enough to register in my senses. If I wanted, I could drop my guard. In the welcome emptiness of space, I didn’t have to dread the press of thoughts. I could practice my abilities without being so quickly overwhelmed, as usual. 

Stubbornly I refuse to. Instead, I grab my tablet from its dock and begin an order for provisions. That branches into a long “to do” list. I groan. I can’t even astro-locate to estimate how long I have until we reach our destination. Any function that could be used to trace the  _ Stray Light _ was disabled on every device aboard. It was a security measure.  _ Because I’m supposed to be dead _ , a voice whispers in my head. 

I round the bend in the hall that connects the living quarters to the cockpit, determined to keep myself busy rather than dwell on unwelcome thoughts. “Zsas?” I call through the blast door, “What’s the ETA?” 

I eye the comm panel, tempted to try for the thousandth time to key my way into the cockpit. It wouldn’t work, since I wasn’t on the permissions list. I’d have to force it. But the makeshift splicer I’d made had disappeared along with master yesterday. Where would I go, anyway? I wondered. If I wasn’t in hiding, where would I be? Who would I be, if I wasn’t a poorly trained nobody in debt to a-a . . .  _ warlord _ ? I didn’t even know what to call him, didn’t know what to call myself. I only knew that I hated the ability that had cursed my life for as long as I could remember. Hated it almost as much as my master seemed to revel in his own. 

The door slides open with an automated whir, startling me from my thoughts. I step back to let Zsas into the hallway, scanning the interior of the forbidden room for the moment that it’s visible. Panels of flashing instrumentation, a starmap readout, a few seats for manual piloting that I was amazed weren’t covered in a layer of dust--that was all I could make out before the door flicked shut once more.

“Greetings, miss.” The protocol droid’s smooth voice says. His pale eye-lamps fix on me. I could almost see the logic gates flipping as he draws up beside me. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” I lie. “How long until we reach Ossus?” 

If the droid is surprised by the fact that I know our destination, he doesn’t say so. Only estimates, “Approximately one and a half cycles, miss. Should I find out if there is an alternate route that might take a bit longer?” He shuffles along, leading me away from the cockpit and back into the common space. “I am certain I can convince the astromech if I can find a few projections about solar storms overlapping our path. They are always a danger, you know. Especially this time of the year. Only someone truly foolish would--” 

“It’s alright, Zsas.” I make another note on my pad, then pull up the readout of the ship’s cargo hold. “Is the manifest current? Or did we pick up anything at the last stop that isn’t listed yet?” 

Zsas makes a crackling sound that must be meant to imitate a scoff. “Of course the manifest is current.”

“Thanks, Zsas.” I interrupt before he can put himself on a long-winded tangent about his dedication to the currentness of the ship’s logs. I tug up a panel near the galley to reveal a ladder. “Send Beso down when he’s finished bothering that poor astromech, will you? I need to run a diagnostic and do a rush job on a few of his upgrades. I’ll be in the lab.” 

Zsas only chatters about his own efficiency in a tone that insinuates I might have mortally offended him. So rather than wait, I slip down to the lower level of the ship without a response. If he conveniently “forgets” to send Beso along, I can always hail the droid over the intercom. 

I comb through the piles of gear on my workbench. When I’ve pulled together all that I can for each of the projects I have deemed necessary, I take a second inventory. A droid-crewed delivery barge would dock and deliver the most urgently requested items when we arrive in-system. I drop the pad onto the worktop, ignoring the flashing and uncompleted item:  _ Detailed report _ .

Instead I focus on what can be done with what I have. I set about winding up spools of cable and attaching re-enforced spearheads to one end of each length. If I can properly attach them to B8-S0’s chassis, they could help the spherical droid to better navigate steep or uneven terrain. 

Next I carefully pack rations into an ultralight pack and triple check the stock of a medkit. I read and reread every treatise, field journal, and history on the planet and its ancient temple that I can find. I save down any and everything that might be helpful to my mission. I prep, check and recheck my growing pile of gear. 

Eventually, when it’s so late that putting together the report will be nearly impossible without missing the deadline—I stand with a long sigh. My back is sore and my neck cramped from spending so much time hunched over B8-S0. The droid is running a long diagnostic test, wires connecting beneath his hull while his optic blinks rhythmically. Droid REM cycle, I think to myself as I watch the little droid update. It feels suddenly and strangely lonely without Beso clicking and whistling to fill the quiet

Pressing shut one of his tool bay doors, I stretch and dig about under the mess of tools for my comm tablet. The same simple notification, now red with impending overdue status, glares up at me. Dread trickles over me and makes me shiver. Something prowls at the edges of my mind again and the world goes suddenly still. It feels almost as if I’m being watched. I scowl, scanning the gloomy belly of the ship. Cargo nets and crates of cargo sway silently in the wide open space. 

Shaking myself out of the strange daze, I swing up and onto the rungs of the ladder and scrabble up to the living quarters. Here the ship is more lived in. Comforting. The few possessions I’ve accumulated litter the space. Bits of scavenged colored glass stringed into garland. An old strand of work lamps, their yellowish glow soft in place of the harsh overhead lighting. A chunk of pale coral in the corner that a peddler had assured me was from the Kaminoan sea. Discarded streamers from a festival, slightly crumpled but still lovely, looped from the ceiling between the galley and the seating area. And my favorite: a hand-tied rug dyed the lush colors of summer on a temperate planet, perfect for lounging on when the worn benches became too confining. 

The vidscreen is still playing, the voices of holonet newscasters murmuring lowly. I curl into a cross-legged position on the rug with my back to the projector. I let the soft sounds of the voices wash over me while I dip cautiously back into the memories of my dreams. 

When the pull becomes too strong, or when I feel myself drifting into a new direction, I focus until I can hear the vidscreen. It’s an imperfect system. By the time I’ve recorded enough to satisfy the vague requirement without inviting master’s anger—I am drained and irritable. A monsterous headache is forming deep behind my sinuses. 

I dump the information into loosely organized lists and give a short summary for each. Without a second thought for a reread or any formatting check, I send the summary off through the bio-hexacryption filter. The metadata for the message would be scrubbed, and the point of origin scrambled. With a glance at the galley chronometer, I roughly estimated that he’d receive it just an hour or two short of the deadline he’d set. 

He wouldn’t be happy, but then he wouldn’t have to worry about me at all if the mission on Ossus went as sideways as I predicted it would.   


When glowering at the view doesn’t relieve my splitting headache, I indulge myself instead. I take the painkillers at the back of the storage capsule. I dim the lights till the glow of my tablet is the only source in my rooms. I sink into my bunk, watching steaks of starlight warp past the viewport. And I dream.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

I can’t breathe. 

Something is in my throat. I cough then heave, helpless to pull it away from my face. Unable to take a clear breath. I writhe, fear so complete that it is like a physical weight. Pressing in on all sides as I struggle to move at all. Panic crawls over me. Blackness tunnels my vision. My limbs feel disconnected. I’m paralyzed. The inner corners of my eyes burn but no tears fall. 

Some sort of medium, a gel or thick liquid—fills the upright tank where I hang suspended. I can feel it ooze against my face and between my fingers. I try to ignore the desperate instinct to  _ breathe breathe breathe _ . I narrow the entire world to the flex of my smallest finger. If I can make it touch my palm I will move on to the next. Once I can make a fist I’ll—

Faint voices interrupt my obsessive practice. They’re low. Distorted. I can see vaguely humanoid shapes moving past the tank. My view is so limited. Wires and panels clutter the transparent panels that form the upper half of the tank. The coagulated media clumps my lashes, sticking them together as I try to focus my eyes. 

One of the figures comes closer. Touches the central panel. A shiver ripples through the gel and my mind whites out. The pain is so acute that I can barely comprehend it. The agony cycles, and I’m limp whenever my body isn’t contorted by the current surging through the tank. Time passes in stops and starts—pain and brief respite. 

Red light washes over the transparasteel. It catches the media and refracts. Something scrapes, gurgles. The liquid drops away suddenly. So fast that it seems to boil as it slips away down the drain beneath my feet. 

The sudden cold is indescribable. It is so complete, so bone-deep that it burns. The fire-and-ice sensation washes over my skin. I gasp as the tube between my teeth retracts. Stale, chemically-laced air fills my mouth and lungs. Sickly sweet, it coats my numbed tongue. 

I stagger into motion. Limbs sluggish and fingers deadened by inactivity, I grasp clumsily for any sort of handhold. Condensation and gel-coated panels are all that I find. The tank is wrenched suddenly sideways and I’m pinned prone, arms at my sides, flat on my back.

There’s an incessant beeping, an alarm, ragged breathing and someone is moaning. It’s me, I realize as my frozen fingertips catch on a frosted keypad near my hip. The hatch. I know suddenly that I have to use the keypad to escape. Survival instinct overrides my fear for a blessed instant and I work my arm into position. My hand won’t cooperate and my breaths become shallow again. 

There is a terrible squealing sound as the metal of my tank bows inward. It contracts around me as if gripped by an enormous hand.  _ Think, think _ . I berate myself. Sipping shallow breaths, I press with all my weight onto my knuckle, groaning with relief when the button beneath gives way. 

Nothing happens. The hatch is stuck. I’m trapped by the damage to the tank. The panic washes back in, prickling over my scalp this time and pouring down my spine. I focus on my breathing as I reposition myself.  _ In, hold it for a few seconds, and blow it out. Again. Pull it in, hold it . . . _

Working my arm across my chest, I groan in pain as my forearm scrapes over something jagged. The metal-and-salt scent of blood fills my nose and my nausea rages back. I gashed myself on something. I’m caught on it. Bearing down, teeth nearly splitting my lip as I pull—my arm tears free and heat pours over my fingers.

Both my palms meet the slick panel of transparasteel in front of my chest. They slide, slipping in the residual gel. I scowl as blood smears over the flickering surface. Read outs spin wildly from panel to panel. The system forces a series of rapid resets. The walls of the tank flash between transparent and solid as the controls fail. The damage is too much for it. Breathing a curse, I struggle to wipe the blood off of my palm, off of my fingers. Smearing it over the fabric on my chest and shoulder, I swipe again and again at the panels, desperate. They continue to flicker ominously. If the system crashes out, I’m dead. 

A whine escapes me, high and thin and pathetic. But finally, finally, the system stabilizes. The panels clear and I see the blurred shape of a figure standing over my tank. Swiping my hands through the blood and gel clogging the panel, I strain my stinging eyes to see. I have to see—I know that it’s important. The impression of the voice comes again. This time he’s calling my name, the name I don’t remember. Metal groans and folds. The top of the tank sheers off and I reach out, blinded by the light that pours in. The tips of my fingers brush warm skin—

The dream warps. The tank and the figure are whisked into dark that suddenly blooms into dusky sunlight. A shaft of light littered with motes warms my face as I freefall. 

I land on my back, sprawled in the dust and grime of a long forgotten cell. The walls are swallowed up by sand drifts. Tattered hangings and cobwebbing clutter the crumbling ceilings. 

I roll to my feet, holding my sore body in a half-crouch. I’m uneasy. Something is wrong. I heard something. Someone else is here.

I scan the room again, slowly. Nothing but worn stone and filth. But the feeling lingers, unnerves me. It feels like a phantom touch running up my back. I creep closer to the crooked archway that is the only exit. 

I move so slowly that my body aches. Every bruise and scrape aches. The gash on my arm is gone, but I still feel the stickiness of the blood and gel on my skin. I rub my hands against my thighs, adding sandy grit to the mess between my fingers. 

A sound, or shift of the light, makes me stop dead. I sink to my haunches, reaching for a blaster that isn’t at my waist. I cast around but there is nothing in the room with me. I’m unarmed and decidedly not alone. I press myself hard into the stone and move as cautiously as I can along the hall. It’s cluttered with more of the same crumbling blocks. 

A room opens up ahead. The ceilings are so high that they disappear into the gloom. Ramshackle walkways and open galleries line the walls. But there is no cover. Only yawning space between me and the next doorway on this level. 

I know what I should do—what I have to do. But I won’t. I don’t want to dip into the well inside me, into the power lapping at my mind. It’s my only defense and still I’d rather—

A shrill whistle splits the quiet. Beeping and then a distinct trill. It squeals, flattens out, and resets. 

“Beso!” I’m moving before I finish the shout. I sprint, skidding across the dirty pavers of the massive room. I’m chasing the sound as it echoes, spinning in place when I reach a four-pointed intersection. Where had the sound come from? 

“Beso!” I scream, afraid. 

Another trill, choppier like he is struggling. Then a stream of angry beeping. I whirl toward the noise, running as hard as I can. I’m close enough now that I hear something more, the shuffle of feet and labored breathing. 

I burst into daylight, sliding to a stop in time to see three masked humanoids grappling with my droid. He’s tangled in their roughly tied net. They have prod-staves. They take turns zapping him. They’re trying to short him out. If they can force him into an inactive state, it will make scrapping him out easier but preserve the expensive bits of hardware that make him worth stealing. 

I roar a warcry, raging beyond words as I jump onto the back of the nearest creature. I latch onto his ragged headdress, ripping at anything I can get my hands on—I spit a stream of furious sounds. My breath is crushed out as the thing throws itself into the walls, pinning me between its weight and the stone. I cling through the pain. My hands are still slimy with gel and blood, and it’s so hard to get a good grasp on the helmet of melded junk. 

I feel my nails peel back and I bare my teeth, sucking in a tight breath. I give every drop of my strength to yank the creature’s head up and over, twisting my whole upper body for leverage. Its neck breaks with a dry crack. I drop away from it as it flops to the ground, suddenly boneless. 

A blow catches my cheek, snapping my head back. I roll with the strike, dropping my shoulder and letting it carry me to the floor. As soon as my back hits the sand, I know I’ve made a fatal mistake. I curl into myself to protect my ribs and belly as the remaining thieves crowd me, kicking. One of them lands a vicious stomp on my hand. Another catches my chin, flinging my head back and exposing my throat. I gurgle as a booted foot crushes my airway. 

Beso is still trilling and beeping frantically, but the sound is distant. Distorted by the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears. The force curls around me, flashing over my failing vision. I search for intersections, for weak spots but it’s too much. I can’t breath. Can’t focus. Can’t—

Shrill beeping wakes me. An alarm is blaring, something is hissing a span from my face. I sway back reflexively, rolling off of my bunk. For a second I lay stunned, staring up at the distorted shape of the ceiling. I stand, turning in a tight circle to get a better look at the mess. Everything in my quarters is tossed. My bunk is the epicenter of the blast, the wall cratered so deeply that the ceiling is uneven. Exposed wiring and plumbing is spraying a sparking mist. 

I stare at the destruction for a moment, faint with disbelief. I’m still dreaming. I have to be. I concentrate, focusing as hard as I can on the present. Slowly, carefully, I raise my arm and pinch hard on the soft skin near my elbow. Pain lances down my arm. I felt pain in the dreams before. It could still be—

“Miss? Miss, are you alright?” Zsas calls through the blast door. It’s almost impossible to hear over the noise of the fried wiring. 

“No, Zsas! I’m fine! Everything is—” 

But the protocol droid has already overridden the lock. He steps inside and seems to take a moment to process the damage. 

“I didn’t mean to—I,” I stutter, wringing my hands. This all still seems so surreal. Like I’ll drop through the floor again and into another bizarre dream, but nothing happens. There’s just the fizzling pop-crack of another overloaded circuit as the crushed pipes spurt uncontrollably. 

Mouse droids whiz in through the open door, chattering as they scan the walls. They scuttle about, dragging off what they can tether to their little magnetic leashes. What isn’t completely destroyed will be repaired in the maintenance bay, and what’s too far gone for that will be scrapped at the next port. The more advanced models begin to scale the wall to work inside the damaged cable chase. They trim away the still sparking lines and begin to make patchwork fixes. One gives a sharp whistle when a fuse blows, arcing white light. 

A thought makes my blood run cold. “Zsas, how did you know something was wrong?” 

“Miss?” He asks, disbelief or concern in his posh voice. When he sees my expression, he explains. “There was an alarm. The ship reported a possible hull breach. The security protocol detected the location.” He totters in place for a moment, maybe wondering rather or not to add, “It was either you or an asteroid strike, and the shields were intact. Ergo the damage came from onboard the vessel.” 

A hysterical laugh catches in my throat. I trip backward, eager to leave the mess to the repair droids. Staring at it only makes the reality more apparent. I tug compulsively at my hair as I pace the short hall between the galley and the sleeping quarters. The mouse droids trundle by, dragging away more debris and snipped wiring. 

I grind the heels of my hands into my eyes. What am I going to do? If the ship had recorded the damage, how could I erase the evidence? The droids would be creating incident reports if they hadn’t already. They would log what supplies they needed, or what they intended to off load—that was assuming that the security protocol hadn’t instantly hailed Master the moment that the damage registered. 

There’s no way to hide it. Dread and fear pool behind my sternum. It would be impossible to keep convincing Master that I could only occasionally dream—that I could only faintly sense the Force. My breathing is coming so fast that I’m panting. The battle meditation and visions were useful to him. Non-threatening. They are tools at his disposal, and a means to repay my debt. Anything more is dangerous. He has a Master of his own, and the Knights— 

The Rule of Two flashes through my mind briefly. Wasn’t it better to have a weak apprentice? That had been my hope. I was content to fold myself neatly into a useful if unexceptional student. To repay my debt and be free—to never so much as think of the Force again once my service is over. I was going to live somewhere sunny and never leave the planet again, never step another foot on a spaceship. I was—

There is a new sound, a drone as a device powers up and the grey-blue light of a hologram flares. My heart drops in my chest. Master appears, clad only in the base layer of his armor. His heavy robes and cowl are gone, but the lifeless mask is in place. He is seated. His broad shoulders are tipped forward and his elbows are braced on his knees. “What,” he grinds out, “happened to my ship?”

I gape for a moment. Of all that I had expected he might ask, the literal damage to the ship had been the least of my concerns. I open and close my mouth twice before I manage to explain. “There was a small incident. Repairs have already begun—”

“The integrity of the hull on the port side hold is reading twenty-five percent.” His vocalizer rumbles as he drawls, “What would you consider to be a major incident?”

I blink, confused by the question and blurt: “An actual hull breach?” 

He’s silent for a long moment as I ask myself why I would antagonize my Master. A hard shove at my shoulders makes me duck my head. I stumble, recover my balance, but keep my face turned down into the bow. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to keep my voice steady. “It was an accident, Master. This will not happen again.” 

He continues as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “Fortunate that your outburst didn’t cause a total integrity failure.” He flattens his hand and the overwhelming pressure of his Force shove pins me completely. I’m locked in place. “You would have spaced yourself.”

I flex my jaw but cannot move enough to speak. He must not want an answer. From this position, I can barely see as he stands. The quality of the hologram is higher this time. I wonder briefly if the connection is stronger because the transmission distance is shorter. 

His grip disappears and I crumple, unprepared. The granular light flashes over my splayed hands as he walks closer and drops into a crouch. The image of his masked face is less than a foot from mine. I stare into it, through it and the sensation is dizzying. That same strange awareness tingles in the fringes of my thoughts. 

He flexes his hand and my chin is pressed up. I can’t control the resentment that fills my expression. I know logically that he isn’t touching me, but my mind fills in the gap between the pressure of his manipulation of the force and the flickering image of his gloved hand. I swallow, trying to press down the dangerous anger that is trying to claw its way up. To make me say something even more foolish. To remind him that all of this—my apprenticeship, my isolation on this ship, using these damned abilities for his benefit—is temporary. Conditional. A noise between static and rushing fills my ears as my emotions spiral. 

He tilts his head, seeming to take in my frustration. “Fear and bitterness. Is that all you can feel?” 

The taunt makes me even angrier. Between the temper I’m holding back and the discomfort of his hand so near my throat, I keep an uneasy silence. 

“More visions.” 

Still, I cannot speak. To confirm it feels like weakness. Like admitting defeat. They’re just dreams, some weak little voice whispers to me. I want to believe it, too. 

His vocalizer clips whatever sound he makes into a buzz. “Of the facility.”

I flinch. 

Master seems unsurprised. It made sense, I supposed. It was the only thing that inspired this sort of response from me. 

_ It’s over _ , I tell myself.  _ They’re all dead and it’s over. I’m never going back there. _

“That wasn’t it.”

He waits. 

“The dream about the-about  _ that place _ ,” I stammer, “That isn’t what made it happen.”

He hums, disinterested or disbelieving. The mask and the hologram make it impossible to tell. 

“It wasn’t.” I feel a strange mix of shaky and fierce. Indignant even in my distress. The distorted memories of the facility are still so fresh. I make myself explain, make myself use the words. “This wasn’t about the facility.” 

“Then what?” He sounds closer to the other voice, then. The one that sounds more man than machine. 

Maybe that is why I tell him: “Thieves. They were hurting—” I cut myself off before I say Beso. “Hurting a friend.” 

That makes him sit back on his heels. He appraises me. His thoughts are alongside mine, wrapping over them as he combs through my unguarded thoughts. “Ah, the droid.” 

I shake my head as if to physically throw him out, anger roaring back at the invasion. I hadn’t expected it. Hadn’t guarded against him. Why should I? I hadn’t known he could do such a thing with just the holographic connection. 

An image of Beso in his dock, the last place I saw him—floats into my thoughts. Then another, a memory: the first time he came online. The spark of green in his optic as he calibrated and scanned my face. Identifier? He’d chirped. And I had told him— 

“Phoebe.” Master repeats aloud. “Is that what you call yourself?” 

Shame douses the happiness that the memory had stirred. I chose it from a holodrama. It was easy for Beso to say in droidspeak. Until now only the little droid had ever heard me say it aloud. At the facility I had just been Subject S. I couldn’t remember what name I’d been born with,or if I ever had one. Master didn’t bother to call me anything in the two years I had served him. So I had chosen something for myself. 

“You’re attached to it.”

“It’s just a name.” 

“The droid.” He says, undeterred by my attempt to divert him. “Is just another weakness to be exploited. To divide your focus.” 

“It’s only a droid.” I search the blank mask and lie, “It means nothing to me.”

“Then wipe its memory bank and scrap it.” He stands abruptly, calling past me to Zsas. “See that it’s done.” 

The anger I pressed down explodes. I wrench myself out of his lax grip and  _ pull _ . The holodeck is ripped from its resting place and into my waiting hand. Master’s image gutters like a flame. His thoughts go with it, but the last impression I have is not of anger. Instead it is even, maddening self-satisfaction. 

I played into his hands by acting on my fear and indulging my anger. I revealed much more than I had intended. I confirmed more visions. I admitted that I had caused the structural damage with an outburst. He even knew the stupid name I had invented for myself—and all the vulnerabilities that surrounded that pathetic fantasy. And what was worst. . . I was losing Beso. 

I am not sure how long I stand there, wallowing. My ears are still ringing when Zsas draws close. “I will do what I can, Miss. To delay, that is, to avoid the order for as long as I can.” When I’m quiet, he prattles on. “I can prioritize other commands. I reason that proper memory bank cleaning is a specialized skill, perhaps one that would require an expert. One that may prove difficult to find, given the  _ Stray Light _ security protocols.” 

When, minutes later, I’m still quiet and still, he fusses a rare few sounds in binary. “Have faith, Miss.” He lays a cold hand on top of my head in a stilted attempt at comfort. Finally he says simply, “Know that I will try.”

“Thank you.” I whisper, throat tight. I slam my eyes shut, thinking of Beso in his dock a level below. Between the vision and Master’s order, how can I take him to Ossus? Even if Zsas manages to delay the scrapping, how was I going to find a memory core large enough in a matter of days? I have no money of my own. I am only allowed to leave the ship on Master’s orders. He’s hemmed it all up so neatly. I’d shown him a weakness and he was leaving me no choices. 

He wants me to beg. To ingratiate myself. Make another deal. To expose more weaknesses for him to exploit. I frown.  _ Think _ . There has to be some way out of this. I consider and discard a few ideas. All of them have the same fundamental problem: I have zero credits to my name. How was I going to do anything without credits? 

The simple solution was the most obvious: earn credits. It would be difficult, nearly impossible. Any and all communications are monitored aboard the  _ Stray Light _ . He’d know if I—for example—began to maliciously sell every non-essential item aboard. He would also know and interfere if I tried to develop some sort of income. I had considered it before, but been frustrated and discouraged by the draconian security protocols. 

The answer seems to present itself almost miraculously. The navigation software gives a low, inoffensive chime and announces, “We have arrived in the Adega System.” 

Outside, through the viewport, I can see the distant shape of a planet. It’s deeply red, swirling with such atmospheric instability that it looks like a cloudy ball of glass. When we make our landing approach, I know, there will be electrical storms so severe that they are visible from orbit. 

Ossus. 


	4. Chapter 4

The trade barge hails when we reach low orbit over Ossus. The blocky, industrial vessel pulls alongside ours but Master’s astromech won’t slow the _Stray Light_ long enough for them to dock. Instead we’re playing a strange, low speed game of pursuit through the sparse traffic of Ossus’ atmo. 

“Pzas!” I shout, swinging myself bodily around the corner that leads to the cockpit. “What is that laserbrain planning to do? Crash land us?”

I pound a fist on the blast door. “It’s a droid-piloted barge! They’re gonna keep following until we let them—“

The door retracts and I stumble halfway into the forbidden room before I’m shuffled back again by a harried Pzas. “We are aware, Miss.” 

I stand, toeing the threshold of the cockpit, as close as the droid will let me come. The star maps are minimized, now. Just the slowly revolving image of Ossus marked with possible landing sites is displayed. The silent astromech is docked and piloting. And there, crowding half the massive viewport, hangs the delivery ship. 

Pzas gives the droid-equivalent of a sigh. “Just how did you manage to get an order through to a Huttese junk ship?” 

“He hadn’t revoked the permissions he granted when I needed that after-market inoxium girding.” I wriggle my personal tablet at the protocol droid. “Don’t worry, though. He finally remembered. It’s disabled now.”

He had firmly locked down every avenue of communication after I’d destroyed the holodeck. It was infuriating. What little freedom I had ever had was gone now. But it had been too little too late—I’d put in the purchase order for the magnetic caster upgrade more than a cycle ago. The Huttese barge had already processed the request and collected half their payment. 

In truth, the Hutts who actually owned the junk ship would gladly keep the part and the partial payment. But this far into the Outer Rim, most mobile vendors were entirely droid-automated. And, in true junker fashion, those Hutts spent the bare minimum to man and maintain the barges. 

“The droid piloting that barge probably has the most basic programming capable of nav.” I tip my shoulders into a shrug. “If Master would rather—“

The squawk of an old battle droid shouting over the comms breaks the staring contest between Pzas and I. 

“ **_Chuba_ **! Come on! Got a delivery, open up!” 

A genuine smile twists my lips. It sounds like a Geonosian B1. Clone Wars era. “Seems like they’ve got an antique flying that thing.” 

Pzas is still hesitating when the Huttese vessel finally ventures too close and slams into our still-active shielding. The _Stray Light_ shudders with a subsonic thrum. Pzas stumbles backward into the cockpit. I grip the tracks on either side of the entryway, clinging as the ship rights itself. 

When he’s steady again, Pzas jams a button on the comm board. “This is an urgent message from the crew of the _Stray Light_. Please respond.” 

“It’s a droid barge!” I snap. “That won’t work! They’re just going to keep trying to dock!”

Pzas doesn’t reply, just waits next to the flashing panel. I’m ready to try forcing my way into the pilot’s seat when a return comes. 

“What is it?” 

Master’s voice makes me freeze. The depth of it surprises me every time. _A vocalizer will do that_. I tell myself. _Bet he sounds like a Jawa without it._

“A sales vessel is hailing us. We have attempted to outmaneuver, but—“

“That ship is more than capable of escaping a freight barge.” 

“Of course, however, we are on our final approach above Ossus and the barge is droid-piloted. They are very basic models, sir. Explaining that we no longer require our shipment has not—“

“The girl.” He says, the tone of his voice shifting. As if that explained everything. “Allow them to dock. Confiscate anything related to memory cores or banks. Keep the companion droid inactivated and onboard.”

“Understood. There is nothing else.”

The commlink disconnects as abruptly as it came online. 

“Sounds like permission to me.” 

Pzas, with the patience of a machine, agrees. “Yes, Miss. The only restrictions he specified was against purchasing a memory core or smuggling B8-S0 off of the _Stray Light_.”

I don’t wait to hear anything more. I have droids to finesse. The droid that meets me at the airlock, though, may actually be duller than the old B1. 

“It’s a good deal. I’m saying you can keep the part. You can keep part of the upfront charge. I just want credits. Not the part.” 

The droid beeps a frustrated sound. “No refunds! I got orders. Deliver the parts, get the money. That’s it.”

I scrub a hand over my face. “This is better than just getting the money. You get money and keep the part—you get more for the same inventory.” 

The droid is quiet for a moment, and I’m hopeful that repeating my offer for the tenth time has finally gotten through his simple programming. Convincing the kriffing thing that I’m not trying to trick it is giving me a massive headache. 

“No deal!” He shouts, losing patience and chucking the heavy parcel onto my side of the airlock. “Take it and go! Or I’m gonna call the boss!”

I want to scream. But the thought of telling Master that I managed to cross a Hutt is enough to make me relent. I swipe my tablet over the worn point-of-sale scanner that is built onto the stupid droid’s arm. I can’t resist grumbling, “Your loss. Your boss would tell you to take the deal.”

It takes two attempts, but the rickety tech finally processes the second half of the payment. “Sure, meatsack.” It snarks, then plays a pre-recorded jingle in an entirely different voice: “Thank you for your purchase!”

“Charming.” 

I sling the heavy package into the living space. Pzas has to inspect it. And either way, I refuse to waste too much time with the now useless machinery. There was no reason to upgrade a body that was bound for the scrapyard. Stress swamps me. I have to find a way to make money without leaving an obvious trail. Master would be looking for a core, and had forbidden me from buying one outright through the ship’s delivery services. 

I watch a mouse droid swerve into the room and scan the package, thoughts still circling. Watching them work was familiar. Soothing, even. The boxy little droid chirps and disappears into a mini-lift in a bulkhead. Headed back down to the maintenance bay, near my workshop.

I tilt my head, a vague plan beginning to come together as I watch the steady parade of repairs and demolition. The mouse droids have even simpler programming than the ones on the droid barge. They were essentially just a conduit—a library of repairs preprogrammed and activated by a more advanced system when there was an issue on the ship. When they judged something to be beyond use it went to a scrap pile. There was, to my knowledge, no oversight. There was also no inventory. It was weighed and sold in lots. Anything precious enough for itemization would be repaired onboard or stored for inspection during a port diagnostic. It was an efficient system. A very automated, largely unregulated system. 

I flip up the hatch and slide down the ladder to the ship’s underbelly. It takes a bit of maneuvering but I manage to squeeze through the cargo to reach the maintenance bay. Repair droids are streaming in and out of the passageways and mini-lifts that run between the ships levels. They busily sort the debris of the damage either into one of the teetering piles or into a large cargo container. 

There is a sizable mound of wiring and circuitry, and another of panels so severely melted or warped that they can’t be repurposed. As a few the droids sort the valuable scrap for bulk sale, more scurry to dump the completely useless bits—from melted plastisteel to singed bedding—into a wire hopper. When it’s full, it raises noisily and flings the garbage into a holding container. That is aligned on a track, designed to feed into the compactor. 

The compactor runs rarely, since a single occupant and a crew of droids created little in the way of uncompostable and non-recyclable waste. When it did run, it was loud. So loud that it was memorable—and I didn’t recall it cycling since well before our last port. Cautiously hopeful, I clamber up the side of the holding bin. Inside is a three-quarters full pile of random items. The most recent obviously from the damage in my quarters. 

From my new vantage point, I can see the neatly compacted, stacked, and secured cubes of garbage stowed near the aft. The waste was so minimal that I was willing to bet it was rarely if ever inventoried. It wasn’t going to be missed. 

As the droids finished their repairs and began to dock for recharge and reports, I set to work. Finding something to pry apart the compressed cubes was the hardest part. From there, replacing the valuable scrap with its weight in trash went quickly. I swapped the wiring first, coiling all that I could into neat bundles. Next I weighed out and replaced the most manageable panels, stacking them onto an antigrav sled. When I was finished, the switch was unnoticeable—at least until the containers were inventoried for sale. 

That wouldn’t happen until the _Stray Light_ docked long enough for full diagnostics. Only a handful of ports met Master’s exacting security requirements. And we visited them so infrequently I couldn’t predict when I might be discovered. Either way, I planned to have backed up and stashed Beso’s memory bank long before that. 

I carefully arrange my provisions to cover the stolen scrap and park the gravsled near the rear loading doors. It’s almost time. I linger just long enough to pat the still inactive Beso, tweaking his antenna before heading back to my quarters. 

I can feel the ship slowing as it drops into atmo over Ossus. It won’t take long to locate the ruins. I pull on thermal control basics and belt a tool kit over a hooded mantle. Wrap style boots are the thickest-soled pair I own, and they’re so snug I have to hop and stomp them into place. My giant pack is prepped and waiting by the hatch. Tugging at the long tail of my belt, I turn in a slow circle searching for anything I might’ve forgotten. 

“Miss?” Pzas calls from his post in the hall, watching as I shoulder my bag. He shows me a smooth, faintly glowing band. “The communicator.” 

I slip my hand into the circlet and am startled when it resizes itself to fit snugly. A greeting flashes over the mirrored surface. It warms and hums against my pulse, flashing soft green. But when I try to slip the fingers of my free hand under the band, it doesn’t budge. I run my nails over the glossy metal but can’t find any hitch or hinge. 

“Insurance, I believe he called it.” Pzas says conspiratorially. 

_It’s useless to be angry at a droid for obeying its programming,_ I tell myself. Still I storm past the protocol unit, headed for the rear ramp. “I’m taking the freight exit. Tell the mech to bring us in belly down.” 

I’m triple checking the lashing on my sled when we land. The arid wind that rushes in as the bay drops open brings grit and dust. It swirls around my feet. Great dunes stretch on toward the horizon, baked by twin suns hanging low in the sky. The crumbling ruins of the temple complex are stacked up against a natural cliff formation not far from the landing site. 

I make a show of starting toward them as the _Stray Light_ lifts off, headed back to orbit. Pzas has orders to idle in proximity for two cycles before I’m to be assumed missing—escaped or dead. I glance back to be sure that the ship has disappeared before swinging my path wide. Not that stealth will be all that possible now. I peck at the blank surface of the communicator. Even with the _Stray Light_ too high to easily track my exact location, the band could probably be used to pinpoint me. 

I adjust my grip on the sled’s lead. I’m going to follow my plan. There’s an outpost not far from the ruins. Colonists and mining companies cropped up on every planet eventually. Even in the Outer Rim. 

Worn pre-fab stalls and improvised huts line a crooked street. I try to seem confident as I drag my haul up to a counter labeled **_Scrap + Trade_**. I file into the loose queue. Most seem to be scavenging abandoned mining equipment. I watch a Rodian haggle with the shop owner in heavily accented Bocce. A juvenile Wookie gets angry with the offer for his lot and rattles the grating protecting the counter. A burly Gamorrean appears and hustles him away from the shop. A group of thin, desperate looking humans is next. Once they’ve gathered their meager payment, I step up to the slatted window. 

I pile circuitry and wiring bundles but before I can say a word the junkboss offers, “100 credits.”

“For which?” I ask, eying the tall male. His prominent horns mark him as either an Iktotchi or a Devaronian. My very limited experience with near-human species came mostly from holonet news and Pzas’ lessons. 

His sallow complexion and sharp teeth make the smile he flashes me feel threatening. “All of it.”

I stare for a moment, stunned. There are damaged circuitry panels in the first lot worth more than that in just raw materials. Even the pittance he’d given the group of humans for their near-garbage had been more than 100 credits. 

“Right.” I begin to load my scrap back onto the sled. “I’ll take this elsewhere.” 

The junker laughs. “No where else for a long ways, traveller. You’d be wise to take my deal.”

“Deal?” I scoff. “I’ll take my chances.” 

“They’ll just say the same.” He taps his clawed hands on the rusty counter. 

“Suppose I’ll find out.” I yank my lashings back into place and step back. 

“Where did you find this scrap, hmm?” He asks, eyeing the parcels on my sled. 

“What does it matter?”

“Who wants to buy something that’s just going to bring trouble?”

“No trouble.” I kick at the gravsled to get it moving. "Not for you, anyway." 

“Fine. I’ll take a look at those actuator scraps.” He leers, gesturing me closer. “They’re half melted. But I’ll give you a fair price.” 

I frown but dump the parts he’d gestured to into his retractable tray. They weren’t actuator parts. But I’m not sure if it would be better to correct him or feign ignorance. 

“Fifteen credits for this lot.” 

I bite my lip but nod. That’s still nearly criminally underbidding me, but it’s better than his opening offer. We work through the contents of my sled. Soon I’m left with just a few hunks of alloys he’s disinterested in and a bundle I’m saving for last. When I finally drop it onto the counter, he eyes it greedily. 

“I’m naming the price for this.” I tell him upfront. 

I’d let him swindle me on the bulk of the scrap. I didn’t know shipcraft nearly as well as I knew droid machinery. But I knew enough to know that Master bought premium quality materials and kept them in pristine condition. I’d been nearly giving things away—but I needed the credits and the junkboss’ deals were better than nothing. 

He grunts. “Fine. Doesn’t mean I’ll pay it.” 

Rather than argue, I turn the sack over. The fancy holodeck clatters onto the counter. It looks strange against the cheap, pitted plastisteel. The highend tech is so glossy and black that it seems to swallow the dusky light. 

“You said no trouble.” 

“The owner won’t come looking for it.” I shrug. “So like I said, no trouble. I want just five hundred.” 

He still hesitates. But greed wins out. “It’s damaged. And I don’t think I believe you. Someone could come looking for a piece like this. Could be a lot of expense on the back end. So, highest I’ll go is four hundred.” 

The twin suns are beating down, and I still have a long trek back to the temple ahead of me. I’d only brought the kriffing thing to spite Master. It was barely damaged, and the weight of the thing alone told me that it was worth exponentially more. But rather than protest the scandalously lowball offer, I shove the holodeck closer to his waiting claws. “Fine. I’ll take the payment now. Physical chips.”

When I’m scooping my credits into a secure inner pocket of my pack, the junker asks, “Anything else you need?”

At my cautious expression he clarifies, “Information? Directions?”

“A droid mechanic, or at least a vendor who has decent parts in stock.” 

He eyes the credits I’m still working on tucking away, and I snap. “If you say it’ll cost me, I’ll remind you that one of those logic boards alone is worth almost twice what you paid for the entire third lot of durasteel.”

He relents. “Smarter than you look, hmm? Very well. Because we have done good business, I will tell you this free of charge.” He tips his horned head toward the far side of the street. “There’s a Chadra-Fan merchant. More or less fair, and keeps a good inventory of droid machinery. Doesn’t care much for outsiders, though.” 

I nod and step aside to let the next scavenger take my place. I drop the unwanted hunks of metal in the shadowy alley where I’d watched the human group disappear into—even if the junkboss didn’t want it, maybe they’d find some other buyer. I fold down my gravsled and stow it in the back panel of my pack. It lays uncomfortably rigid against my shoulders when I swing it back into place, but it’s better than towing it empty. 

The Chadra-Fan turns out to be as surly as I was warned he would be. But he is, like the junkboss said, fair enough to only charge me one and a half times what the mediocre memory core is worth. I still have enough credits left over to try again at a more reputable shop if the _Stray Light_ ports again before Master presses the issue of wiping and disposing of Beso. 

_It’s better by leagues than what I had this morning,_ I tell myself. Even if I’m not sure that Beso’s messily compiled software will fit on the core, between it and the credits—I had some semblance of hope. 

I make my way back to the ruins, reaching the ridge where I'd been dropped just as night falls. Briefly, I consider making camp. The mantle was long enough to be used as a blanket, and I’d packed an ultralight shelter. But the windswept, crumbled courtyard in front of the temple feels too exposed. 

Instead I press on, cracking a strand of glowrods and draping them over my pack for light. Inside is the familiar sight of the temple I’d dreamed of. The details fall into place, filling in the parts I’d forgotten. Shredded tapestries and broken pottery litter the grand entrance. The massive doors have long since collapsed. Their shape is barely visible beneath the encroaching sands. 

“Get in.” I tell myself. “And get out.”


	5. Chapter 5

The temple is familiar and strange. 

Some of it—the drifts of red sand and worn stones—are just as they were in the dream. But I didn’t know that the air would be stinging cold while the sand radiated the heat of the day. The result is eerie. A shimmering haze rises from the broken pavers. It makes the yawning entryway seem like a portal to something supernatural. 

I smooth my hands down my thighs. Master was so vague. He wants a relic, but surely there were holocrons and artifacts scattered through the rambling structure and the natural cave system it was carved from. I have a time limit, and I’ve already spent the first half cycle at the outpost. Squeezing my eyes shut, I sigh. I have two options. I already know which I will have to choose. Wandering the temple grounds and hoping to stumble on the artifact was unrealistic at best. Giving in, surrendering, being humbled—that is what Master wants. He wants me to use the force. That’s why he sent me unarmed and under-informed into a site so steeped in the force that I could almost hear it hummming in the air. 

Then suddenly the sensation is back. The tingle that fizzles between my physical body and my mind like intuition and anticipation twined together. It pulls at me like an invisible thread. I pull in a slow breath. I gather all of my uncertainty, my fears for Beso, my resentment for Master—and release them with an exhale. I surrender. 

Calm envelopes me. The communicator bracelet is doing something. Chiming or trembling against my wrist. But it’s distant as I narrow my focus to the twinge of a feeling. The intersecting lines overlay everything, clearer here. More defined and multidimensional in a way that is hard to understand even as I try to concentrate on it. The insistent pull comes again and I see more than feel myself drifting deeper into the temple complex. 

The tessellating lines swim in and out of sight as I trail through empty chambers and crumbling galleries. Sunshafts and breezeways allow moonlight in to some, others are pitch black. All the way I follow the pull. It tugs at my bones and hurries me. I rush through cavernous halls and collapsed paths so narrow that I have to squirm through them, tossing my pack ahead then scrabbling after. 

Then in a tall, narrow room the connection snaps. One moment it’s there and the next it’s gone—as if it had never been. Once I realize it, I slide to a stop. I am moving so fast that I skid on the sandy stones. Dust sprays, hangs in the air. I can barely see. I squint, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the faint light leaking in from the adjoining chambers. 

When I see the deep, still shadow that lays like a pool in the center of the room, I hiss. My next step would have been my last. I creep closer to the edge, peeking over into the perfect dark of the pit. There must have been stairs once. I can see their remnants clinging to the walls and curling down into nothingness. I toe a stray chunk of stone into the hole and listen. It clatters on and on, bouncing loudly off of the walls below. I can’t hear when—or if—it hits the floor. 

My communicator flares, blinding in the darkness of the temple. I gasp, reeling back and away from the ruin’s edge. What? I thrust out my arm, staring at the now warmly glowing band. Several read outs tick across its face, bright and incomprehensible. Trying to read it makes my eyes sting. I swipe a hand over my chilled face, rubbing at them. 

The communicator was equipped with a commlink. Of course it was, I reasoned. I wouldn’t be so lucky to just have an unremovable long range tracker. I scowl down at the device but it has phased back to its mirror coated finish. All I see is my own expression, lit strangely green by the microflorescence that glows from where the band meets the skin of my wrist. 

Tentatively, I think: _Master_? But when no reply comes, I try again aloud. 

His voice comes again, clear but still modified by his vocalizer. “Have you located the artifact?”

I hesitate. It seems like a perfect opportunity to find out how closely he can track me with the communicator. “Not yet, Master.”

I wait, curious you see if he will ask questions. But instead he urges, “Move quickly. The temple guardians will sense your approach.” 

“Guardians?” I crouch, staring fruitlessly back into the gloom. Paranoid that the masked creatures from my dream would appear and shove me headlong into the shaft. 

“The Ossus temple is occupied by a band of primitives.” 

I can feel more of the familiar, frustrated anger swell inside me. A large part of why I’d left Beso—a droid I had heavily modified to help me survive situations just like this—was to avoid the conflict with the masked creatures. I thought that leaving him on board the Stray Light would prevent that confrontation. No one would be tempted to steal a droid that had never seen. 

But the dreams were only potential futures. I could only guess at what they meant, and when or if they would come. And, I think with a new, sinking intuition—often fate is met on the path one takes to avoid it. 

A chirrup sounds and a sensation like a finger pressing across the thin skin inside my wrist makes me jump. The wristlet is glowing with a golden light now. Aurebesh flits across the band along with figures and a spindly graph. 

“Afraid?” 

I hold a breath until my lungs burn, struggling with my temper and anxiety. The force, so present and eager inside the temple, curls thickly around me. It’s almost syrupy. I can nearly feel it brush past me as it whorls and flows. The lines creep back into my sight as I allow my mind to drift, seeking peace. 

At last, I reply. “I am not fond of heights, Master.”

He pauses and I can hear the whoosh of air through the filter of his mask. “Explain.”

Ah, I fight a triumphant grin. He can’t see me then. And he probably isn’t familiar with the specifics of the temple interior. “There was a partial collapse. I sense that the artifact is somewhere below my current location.”

I study the archway that I’d come in through. It seemed as decrepit as the rest of the complex. I was going to have to repel down and to do that I needed an anchor point. Only I didn’t trust a single thing in this pile of junk not to crumble. I shrug off my pack, rifling through the supplies until I find a retractable line. A moment more and I find set of spikes meant to stake my shelter in place. I dump them aside and shed my mantle, stuffing it into the empty body of the pack. It will make climbing too difficult. But I already miss its warmth. 

The communicator hums again when I smack my hands together, trying to get blood flowing in the frozen tips of my fingers. This deep inside the complex, the desert sun is a distant memory. I move quickly, already dreading the process of lowering myself into the pit. The potentially bottomless pit, the depths of which I didn’t and could not know. The one that might lead directly to a band of primitive temple guards. 

I stall as long as I dare, checking and rechecking my rigged anchor points. I managed to create a second catch point from the doorway and a tent pole, which will hopefully hold my weight. It won’t come to that. I try to reassure myself, looping the retractable coil around my waist, through my belts, and around my upper thighs. When I’ve cinched it, I back slowly toward the pit. 

It was theoretically possible to slow a fall with the force. I’d read about great masters who could perform all sorts of athletic maneuvers with the aid of the force. I, unfortunately, was not adept with the physical side of the force. I could only occasionally lift small objects. In a panic, free-falling to my probable death, I assumed that saving myself with a well timed force push was outside the realm of my abilities. 

_Good talk_ , I think to myself. _Very inspirational._

I tip myself back, feet scrabbling over the stone until the line snaps taut. Slowly, I lower myself to a sort of seated position. One hand braced against the wall and the other controlling the slack, I drop. The dark is so disorienting. I can’t tell how far I’ve gone, there is just the weightlessness of the controlled fall. I can’t see anything. I try to concentrate on what I can feel, what I can hear. The metallic sound of the line unfurling seems so loud in the dark. My breathing is the only other sound as I descend. All I can feel is the burning cold and the pinch of the harness. The scrape of the stone under my palm as I guide myself down, down into the—

I slip. My body twists, momentum spinning me as I struggle for to catch ahold of anything to slow my fall. For any sort of stability. A scream tears from me as I careen faster and faster through the dark. I have to stop! I have to stop! How do I—? I clamp down on the socket at my waist, crimping the line. I jerk to a stop. I twirl in place, swinging wildly still from side to side but no longer falling. Another, strangled scream erupts from me. It’s bitten off, but I can’t stop it. Adrenaline makes me shake as I careen, nauseated and still disoriented. 

The band on my arm is trilling. The sound is high pitched and piercing, and now it’s flashing red. I may as well be a beacon in the darkness. 

“Have you found the primitives?” Masters voice asks, echoing. 

“Not quite, Master.” I wince. My voice sounds reedy. Tight with panic. Pathetic. I try to steel my voice. “Slight complication.”

_Almost fell to my death._ I think to myself, watching the wristlet scroll with more readings. There’s large spikes in the line that I assume is my heart rate. The lights under the band are orange now, deeper than the gold they’d flashed before. _It’s monitoring my vitals._

My momentum is slowing but I’m still rotating in place. It’s dizzying and there’s nothing I can do to stop it but find solid ground. Without the wall to brace against, it’s even harder to make myself press the cord’s release switch. Still, I force myself to jam it. Sooner I drop, sooner I get my feet on solid ground. My palm burns but I can’t let go of the cord slipping by overhead. It’s worth the sting to reassure myself that I’m not free falling through the dark. 

Eventually I can see faint light below. What it is, I can’t tell. Every sound seems to echo as if I’d dropped into a cavernous space. Maybe the stairs ended, and whatever platform they’d led to was crumbled away. I think, staring into the gloom. A scraping sound is my only warning before my feet slap something solid. _The bottom of the pit. Finally!_

I hurry to stand, tangling myself in the slack of the line pooled underneath me. I drop to my knees, tugging my pack onto my feet. The light of the glow strand still wrapped over the bag creates a faint halo in front of me. The chemical light is fading, nearly spent. I can only just see an arms length or so in all directions. _Looks solid._ I scan what I can see, not ready to unstrap myself until I’m sure I’ve found the bottom and not a ledge. I pull a handheld lamp from my pack. Hopefully it’s dim enough not to draw too much attention. 

I’d hesitated to use the light on the way down for that reason. I didn’t want to be a target. Now that the communicator had flashed every color and I screamed half the way down—

The lamp in my hands flares, casting a brighter circle of light. I catch sight of my surroundings and gasp. Here, the temple is almost pristine. Shelves as tall as trees dominate the space. Their soaring height makes me feel like a child. They are arranged radially from the circular plaza where I’d landed. I stumble forward, fascinated by the rows of neatly arranged holocrons. 

The twinge reappears. It plucks at me, stealing my breath. I shed the harness, hands clumsy as I hurry to follow the feeling. I’m so close. I lift the hand lamp over my head, trying to light the row I’m being pulled along as much as possible.

I trail a hand over the nearest shelf. The smooth stone is cool. They’re all identical except for the variations in the sizes and styles of the holocrons. Some are made of bright metal; others dull. A few have gem colored panels. Their shapes are the most variable. There are cubes, prisms, and more I have no name for. 

Not a speck of the dust and decay from the complex above is here. It seems frozen in time. As if it was just as I might have found it during the height of the Jedi Order. It feels like a holy place, steeped in the force. The holocrons seem to whisper in the quiet. The darkness no longer seems foreboding. 

I walk for so long through the unending aisle of holocrons that I’m surprised to see an end. A curved wall is ahead but no ceiling is in sight. There is just a choice: right or left, into the hall that must circle the perimeter of the great library. I’m tugged to my right, and I walk until the sensation of  _ rightrightright _ begins again in my chest. 

I stop, confused until I see it. An arched doorway. The door is carved from the same stone as the wall and set into the wall so seamlessly that I had missed it. My fingertips brush the doorway and the twinge disappears. 

_ Found you.  _

Crackling shatters the quiet. Two electro-staves flash to life and I throw myself back, out of their range. I drop my lamp and it clatters to the ground, casting long shadows over two figures. They’re dressed in rags with strange masks covering their faces. My stomach twists. They’re the creatures from the dream. 

I reach out palms down to show them I’m unarmed. “Do—?”

One jabs their spear at me threateningly while the other holds steady.

I skitter back further, arms still held placatingly. “Wait! Wait! Do you speak Basic?” My eyes flit over their snarling masks. “Can you understand me?”

The aggressive one pauses and glances to the larger, calmer one who nods. 

“You do?” I ask. “You understand me?”

They do not speak but I ramble on, encouraged. “I mean you no harm. I just—this place. . .it called to me.” 

The angry one stabs his electro-staff at the door and slashes forbiddingly. 

“That place is off limits?” I ask. “Right. I don’t—“

“You will stand aside and allow my apprentice to take what she needs.”

Master’s voice is like an accelerant. The situation dissolves almost instantly. The aggressive creature crowds toward me, mask turned down as if fascinated by my communicator. I step back but he’s quick. He catches hold of the arm with the band and plucks at it. It warms briefly against my skin before it blares an alarm. The creature staggers back, shaking and howling. The larger one swings his staff up and into position, stepping in front of the still seizing smaller creature. 

“Dispose of them.” Master orders. 

“Wait, no I—“

But there’s no chance to explain. The larger creature thrusts, whirls the staff expertly and swings down in a blindingly swift attack. I stumble backward, scattering holocrons from the lower shelves as I fumble into a roll to avoid his attacks. The heavy staff rings against the stone as it lands next to my ear, a breath away from cracking my skull. 

“Please, I—“ I strangle a shout, wedging onto the lowest shelf to shield myself. I fall out on the other side, in the next aisle, more holocrons clattering to the floor in my wake. The guardian roars, the sound distorted by his mask. I scramble to my feet and sprint as fast as I can. The only light is from the faint glow of the thousands of holocrons, their colors streaking as I run as hard as I can back toward my climbing line. 

But my path back isn’t clear without the pull of the force. Not all of the aisles are pristine. There are collapsed shelves and shattered holocrons. I stumble through the shadowy ruins, slowed by stray stones and crushed holocrons strewn across the floors. It’s impossible to run full speed, nearly blind. When I begin to feel a stitch forming in my side, I duck and squeeze myself into the bottom row of the nearest shelf. 

I reign in my panting, forcing myself to be as quiet as I can. I strain my ears, listening for footsteps or any sign that I’m still being chased by the creatures. When nothing comes, I drop out the other side of the shelving again into the next row.  _ More distance can’t be a bad thing _ , I reason. They were arranged like rays from a central point. That meant so long as I didn’t get turned around, I would eventually find my way back to the repelling line. 

This aisle is worse than the last. It’s damaged heavily. There are far fewer holocrons than in the other rows. Debris litters every bit of the pavers underfoot. I’m planting my hands to leverage myself up when I brush one of the fallen ones. It shivers and unfurls, twisting and hovering until the purplish light inside swells and winks out. 

I spring up, surprised and confused. I hadn’t concentrated on opening the device. I had barely touched it at all. And other than briefly moving it hadn’t—

“Hello.” A strange voice says. 

I whirl, throwing my hands up and over my head. But instead of a masked creature I see a slim man in flowing robes. His face seems young, even though he has a pale mustache and beard.

“No need for that.” He says softly. His small deeply set eyes twinkle under wiry brows. “You called me here after all, young Jedi.” 

“What? I didn’t. I’m not a—“ But the strange man is gone. 

The sudden sureness that I’m not alone washes over me. It feels like eyes on my back. Just like in the dream. I pull my forearms up and shield my nape an instant before I hear the sizzling sound of an electro-staff. It cracks hard against my wrist, glancing off of the comms band, and sending a shockwave through my arm. It goes briefly numb before it registers as pain. 

I drop forward, ducking under the creature's guard and clasping its shoulder. I swing one-handed under it’s raised arm and shove as hard as I can at the thing’s lower chest. It stumbles but doesn’t fall like I’d hoped. Rather than try again I dance back. But he has the advantage on reach, his long staff striking out again at my injured arm. He focuses on it, swinging again and again, and my reaction is slow. 

I manage to get the arm up and into a guard. I wait for him to commit to a swing and grab for the inert part of the shaft beneath the electrified prod. But he rolls the staff, flourishing so that the tip catches the band on my arm again. This time it’s a direct hit. The communicator surges and we both freeze painfully. It feels like I’ve been clamped down upon by giant buzzing teeth. My muscles are locked by the current. 

The creature grunts and breaks the circuit, freeing us both. The band goes suddenly slack, slipping back and up my arm before suddenly recalibrating and cinching into place on my bicep. I groan, the injury in my wrist throbbing painfully. Even if it’s inadvertent, the band is my best defense and only offensive weapon. It creates some sort of shock and the band is seemingly indestructible. But now it was placed awkwardly high on my arm, closer to my shoulder than my elbow. 

_ Going to have to make the best of it. _ I loosen my muscles, fighting the urge to lock up with stress and fall into a guard pose. The creature charges forward again, prodding at my chest with the electrified point of his staff. I sway and slide back again and again to avoid him. I’m driven up and onto more debris. The pile is unstable, but I find surer footholds than the creature, who stumbles twice before I take initiative and strike. 

I jump, throwing my weight into a kick that lands on his chest. He loosens his grip on the staff in surprise and I step closer, slamming the elbow of my injured arm down on his fingers where they cling to the grip. But I’m overconfident. He doesn’t let go. Instead he traps my arm between his body and the staff and jerks up. It gives with a wet  **pop** . 

_ Dislocated or broken. _ I know instantly. I shrink back, cradling my injured arm to my body. Adrenaline floods my system and the force plucks anxiously at my mind. There, so ready for me to mold it. To give in. The web of lines overlays my vision, showing me where he’s vulnerable. Telling me where to strike. 

Another blow rains down and I move. No longer on the defensive, I strike out viciously. I drive the creature back by pulling in close to his guard, slamming a fist into his throat. He chokes and wheels back. I follow. I drive an elbow into his gut, winding him again. Then I follow up with a force assisted strike to the mask, driving my fist down with a hammer blow on top of a fissure that it shows me. The weak spot gives way and the heavy mask cracks. The creature shouts in surprise but it’s not as distorted this time. Instead it sounds human. Before he can recover, I plant my foot into his chest and send him rolling down the pile. 

The other figure is there to meet him. I hear them speak, their language a strange mix of basic and something else. The injured one tries to call the younger back, but he marches up the pile toward me. Determined. I huff and drop into another guard pose. My arm feels like it has its own heartbeat. I tuck it tight to my body and concentrate. 

This time it’s faster. The force wraps around me and I move only when I must. I dodge his frenzied jabs. Instead he misses and strikes the shelf behind me, the blows slamming into the stone. I lean back to avoid a wide swing and sweep his foot. He stumbles hard and I pluck the staff from his grip. It’s over in an instant. I leverage the staff against my hip to make up for my one handed hold and tag the creature in the back, center of mass. He drops like a stone. I send him down the other side of the pile, away from his friend. 

A thunderous  **_crack_ ** rings out. It ripples over the library and echoes back. I look up to see the damaged shelf has fissures racing through it. The blows from the electrosaff are finishing what an earlier cave-in and time had begun. It sways ominously and I start down the pile. I’ll have to clear several rows to be safe, given the thing’s enormous height. Shouting catches my attention. The smaller creature is struggling to reach the larger one. He shouts again but the other doesn’t stir. The smaller one still presses forward, reaching desperately through the nearest shelf for a grip on the unconscious one. The way the debris has fallen makes it nearly impossible. They aren’t going to be able to drag him clear in time. 

I vault down the pile, slipping and sliding. I land next to the unconscious creature--male, I realize when I catch sight again of a sliver of his human face. His expression is slack and his skin pale. I reach down, knocking the remnants of the mask off of his head.  _ It will just be more weight _ . Ignoring the younger one’s shouts, I wrap the unconscious man’s arm through my own. I look through the shelf at the other, still masked creature and shout, “Move!” 

It hesitates, then moves aside. I slip through, tugging the large male along behind me. I wheeze when my damaged elbow slams into the sharp sides of a holocron but press on, rolling clear. Turning back, I leverage the dead weight of the large male over my back and struggle to stand. The weight suddenly lifts and I see another human male, the aggressive younger one I realize, has shed his mask and is shouldering the older man’s other arm. I tuck my injured side into the unconscious man for balance and start forward. 

We lurch along, towing the larger man’s dead weight between us. Above and behind, chunks of stone begin to rain down. They crash into neighboring rows, sending holocrons raining down along with more pieces of stone. I feel bruises the size of fists bloom as they land, but I can’t slow down. We limp on toward the central plaza, the noise of the falling row rumbling on and on as it pulls down at least one other nearby stack. Eventually though, the rubble stops falling and we slow to a stop. 

I help lower the injured man to the ground, wincing when I have to use my swollen right arm to stop his head from lolling to the stones. The younger man watches carefully, his pale eyes darting after every move I make. He seems to be around my age. Human, if horribly pale and grimy. I rock back on my heels and slowly stand. My pack is hanging limply across my back, battered by all of the action. I struggle to adjust it one-handed. 

“I’m going.” I say at last, backing slowly away from the pair. 

He lets me go. 

When I’m sure I’m far enough to risk it, I turn and jog as quickly as I can. Every step jars my throbbing arm. But I make myself press on until I reach the end of the row. It isn’t the plaza that I see, though. It’s the hallway that runs around the outside edge of the library. I let my head drop back on my shoulders. _ Of course. _ I’d run the wrong direction. 

Crumbling against the end of the nearest row, I tug at my sleeve. It’s plastered to me with sweat and even though the fabric is stretchy, I can’t get it to roll up high enough to get a good look at the spot that hurts the most. It’s difficult to see, but I think the flesh is flushing a strange shade of red. Desperately I slap at the inert band. 

“Master?” I rasp. “Master, please—” 

The band flashes. It sputters, flashing through a few cycles of colors and bleating a strange series of sounds. 

“—ts?” Static explodes across the line. It whines and resets. “—nd the artifact.”

I scrub flyaways back from my face, suddenly chilled. My teeth are chattering. “My arm.” I rush to explain. “The band is malfunctioning. It’s crushing my arm.”

“Not possible.” He says more but it’s garbled by the broken commlink. 

“They had electrostaves.” I curl into myself, pulling uselessly at the band. It feels like it’s cutting into my arm, like it’s going to snap the bone. “They damaged it! It slipped up my arm.” I ramble on, trying and failing to get any of my fingers under the communicator. My arm feels like it has a heartbeat of its own. The band stabilizes for a moment, flashing red at whatever it reads. I can’t see the face of the kriffing thing. 

Master doesn’t respond for what feels like an eternity. Then there’s more garbled sound, stretched slow then sped up. “—fer to your other—Have one cycle. Fail and—”

The band loosens and I tug it off of me so desperately that it’s flung across the hall, clattering to the floor. It malfunctions again, tightening and loosening jerkily. _ I am not putting that back on _ . I promise myself. The relief of having it off is almost immediate. The pressure in my arm is almost gone. Just my wrist and elbow are painful now. Swollen but not impossible to ignore. I heave a long breath and give myself a moment of calm. I let my eyelids droop, watching the shimmering waves of the force eddying past.  _ This place is terrible and beautiful. _

“What a strange little thing you are.” A voice calls, pulling me out of my stupor. “One foot in this world, one in the other. Must drive you half-mad, hmm?” 

I shoot up straight, shoving myself to stand and knocking my sore arm against the shelf. I curse fluently, spinning in place to try and find who’d spoken. 

The man from the holocron appears so closely that I realize he isn’t solid. I can see through him. He isn’t discolored like a hologram, though. He looks almost like a— “Are you—? Are you a force ghost?”

He tips his head as if he’s humoring a silly question. “And you’re sensitive to the force, Not-A-Jedi.” 

He nods without me replying. “Strong with visions by the look of it? Happens that way sometimes, I’m afraid. Too much of an affinity for them is. . .a difficult gift.”

“Gift?” I scoff. “It’s a curse. When I sleep, I dream horrible things. I see these, these lines—potential futures constantly, it—” I shake my head hard, stopping myself from revealing any more. 

The ghost only nods. “Seers usually burn out or cut themselves off.” He tips his shoulders in a shrug. “A tragedy. A terrible waste of your abilities, but the best thing for it, by most accounts.” 

My heart turns over in my chest. “Cut what off?” I ask desperately, “the force?” 

The possibility of that is as terrible and beautiful as this temple. It’s an answer to my problems. Almost perfect. Without my connection to the force, the visions would stop. My debt to Master would be impossible to repay as an apprentice. The dreams—the dreams would be gone. My mind races, teeming with possibilities and half-lain plans. 

“How is that possible?” I demand, but he ignores me. 

He seems to examine the edges of the shape of me, reading something that I cannot see. “Especially in your case. So much fear.” 

I scowl.  _ I’m sick of being called a coward _ . “I’m not afraid.” 

“No.” He agrees, but it feels like he’s humoring me again. “Suppose you’re not. Just a sad thing to see such misery in one so young.” 

He moves suddenly, as if to pluck something that dangles near my temple. His hand is empty, but his fingers are pinched as if he’s caught something between them. He gives it a fierce tug, and my breath goes with it. I’m suddenly winded. It feels like I’ve fallen from a great height--or like I was kicked in the chest. The strange stirring in my mind comes again and with it a foreign anger. 

“Curious.” The man says, then grins. “This is the most fun I’ve had since I died. I’m sure of it now.” 

He turns, long snowy robes swirling behind him as he condenses into an orb of light. “Come this way, then.”

I hesitate, watching the spirit zip along the hall. When he’s nearly out of sight, his voice comes again.

“What you need is this way.” It sounds like he’s speaking into my ear, even as his ghostly body continues to float merrily just at the edge of my vision. 

I swallow thickly, glancing down at the still flickering commlink before setting off after the ghost. 


	6. Chapter 6

I follow the light along the curving hall. It flits along, brightening the way enough that I can see intricate inlaid designs that soar up the walls overhead. Some are interrupted by huge cracks. Others are pristine and well-preserved. I wonder how much the strange guardians have to do with that. How they had come to this place or if they understood what it was—

Another light, brighter than the ghost comes into view up ahead. As we come closer I realize it’s mine. It’s the crescent shaped lamp I’d dropped when the guardians appeared. I scoop it up and turn to examine the door. The ghost unfurls itself back into its human form. The man watches patiently as I inspect the door.

When he offers no advice, I ask, “Here?”

He hums absently and slips through the wall.

I blink. He hadn’t indicated either way, but he was the second manifestation of the force to lead me to this door. I step closer and press my hand flat against the slab of stone. It gives way with a scrape and swings open to reveal a dark cavern. This part of the complex seems to be carved from an ancient cave system.

Hallways split away at random intervals, curling out into the dark. The cold is even deeper in the stone path, so far from the surface and its suns. I pass chamber after chamber. Until at last, the hall opens into another gallery. This one is smaller but no less grand than the one in the complex above. 

The gloom lifts when the force ghost appears and shows me a rusted, worn panel at the edge of the chamber. When pressing and coaxing won’t work, I knock the switch loose with the lamp. The old wiring buzzes furiously but flickers to life. A pillar of light erupts in the center of the room, followed by countless points of light that hover in a vague order. 

I stumble closer, so amazed that it takes me a moment to recognize it for what it is. A star field. I turn slowly, but can’t orient myself. It’s no part of the galaxy that I recognize. 

“A map.” I mutter in wonder.

“More than just that.” The ghost chimes in. He has reappeared near a console at the heart of the chamber. “An archive.”

I join him, staring down into the time-faded interface. It’s difficult to tell what the command prompts are, or how to select new displays, or--

“You think very loudly.”

I frown and turn away from the archive. “I--what?”

The man tilts his head again, birdlike and a little alien for all that he resembles a humanoid. 

“You are trained, yes?” At my hesitant nod, he allows, “Not as a Jedi, but in the force.”

“I was.” I explain reluctantly. “Am? I have a Master.”

That catches his attention. “Not a Jedi, but you have a Master?”

I hum a noncommittal sound and return to my investigation of the archive’s panels. “A long story.”

“I have an eternity.” He says calmly, floating nearer and watching my hands move over the strange interfacing program.

It’s some sort of forerunner to holographic boards. It’s translucent but reactive, and feels a bit like pressing a physical button. I’m tempted to pull at the cladding and to inspect its build. Is it a prototype of some sort? A one-off custom piece of machinery?

“You may, but I have less than a cycle to return with whatever it is my master wants from this deathtrap.”

“Ominous.” The ghost replies, humor in his tone rather than curiosity. 

I continue to scroll through the archive, waiting for some sign of what I should be searching for, for some tingle of intuition. “Very.” I snipe, not sure rather or not I mean it. I was afraid of my master. “If I explain, will you help me?”

“A very uneven exchange.” He muses, phasing through the console to stare up into the flickering star map.

I watch him nervously. He was, as far as I knew, all that he appeared to be. An old Jedi master, or at least the remnant wisdom of one--preserved in a holocron. But he could be something else, something darker and more dangerous. 

“What if we exchanged answers? An explanation for an explanation.”

His smiling face turns toward me but he doesn’t move. He just waits.

I take that to mean that he accepts. I weigh how to explain my situation without revealing anything more than what was necessary.

“I was discovered to be force sensitive at a young age.” I begin, still scrolling through the archive. My eyes burn with the focus I pour into reading the console’s panels rather than slip into memories. “I was part of an extensive experimentation program. Master discovered me, freed me. Now I serve him.”

“I see.” The ghost says, face free of its humor. He seems older now. Like a wizened master, rather than a kindly grandfather. “And your question for me?”

I gesture toward the star field that spirals overhead. “Is any one of these more important than the others? Something worth sending me into this temple to find?”

He shakes his head slowly. “It is too difficult to say. It would depend on a great number of things. On who your master is, what he is searching for--”

I sigh heavily and turn back to the archive’s database. It couldn’t be that easy. Of course. “Right.”

“Who is he?”

I pause, surprised. It seems like a useless question but answering it seems harmless enough. “My Master is Kylo Ren.”

Saying so aloud seems odd. I had only heard him referred to by his combined name and title in passing. Every time had been overheard, and he’d never told me what to call him aside from Master. I consider explaining that he is a Commander of the First Order, but what would any of that mean to a long-dead Jedi?

If he recognizes anything about that name he hides it well. But he doesn’t seem mystified, either.

This time, my question nearly bursts from me. “What does it mean to be orphaned from the force? Why did seers orphan themselves? Is that a skill I can learn?”

Before I can ask more, about rather it was permanent or common practice in his time--he replies. “That is far more than one question.”

“How can I learn it?” I ask, determined to have the option. I had more time than I knew what to do with aboard the _Stray Light_. I could research the concept more then.

“You could ask your master.” He hedges, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his robes. It feels like some sort of test. “Unless you fear he would not allow it?”

“Is that your question?” I ask. He nods and I admit, “I wouldn’t ask. If you won’t--or can’t--help me, then I will find some other way.”

He seems to have expected that answer as well. Rather than ask another question, he says, “There are countless holocrons here. More than one would have information that would answer many of your questions about your gifts.”

Excitement fizzles through me. “Where?” I demand.

He only replies cryptically, “That would depend on what it is that you decide that you need.”

I stare long and hard into the hazy blue light of the archive. Here, surrounded by the force that saturated this place, the thought of being completely cut off from my abilities. . .

A surprising sadness fills me. I had never enjoyed my connection to the force. Never valued it or longed to hone it as Master did. Most often I tried to ignore it, entirely. To pretend it away.

_It brought me nothing but grief and misery._ A voice whispers. _Stole my choices, my life, my family. Delivered me to servitude. To fear and pain and—_

I gasp, starting violently. My hand slips through the control board and knocks a switch. The display reels sickeningly and the machine groans as its mechanism grinds, the great beams that make up its array rearranging into a new configuration. Nausea rolls through me, leaving me clammy. I wind my arms around myself, only for my swollen arm to give an unpleasant jolt of pain.

The voice slithers back alongside the ache, chanting. _The knowledge is power. Possibility. Take it! Demand to know what it is we need!_

My eyes meet the old master’s and in them I can see that he knows. He can feel the struggle inside me. It’s as if he can see the temptation weighing on my mind.

He is serene but remote. As if he already knows what I will ask him for, and is resigned.

“I want—”

The map display overhead clicks into its new configuration and hums to life once more. With it flares the intuition that led me here. It buzzes so loudly that it vanishes the cold angry thoughts that had been so overwhelming just a moment ago.

“Ah,” the old master says. “The force has laid a strange path for you, it seems.”

_Thiago_ , I read. The planet is lush. Green and strewn with oceans. A shimmering point appears in its upper hemisphere. Another temple. I rake my good hand through my pack until I find my tablet. It’s a basic model, incapable of much this far from the _Stray Light_. But it did have a rudimentary scan and data recording programming.

As my tablet struggles to communicate with the ancient archive, I study the old master. He is watching me rather than the star map. Still, I tip my head toward the projection and ask, “Do you know it?”

“A bit before my time, I’m afraid. What is it that your Master is looking for, I wonder?”

I let the reality of that sink in. The temple that the force was pulling me toward was ancient even by the old master’s standards. _What is it that Master is looking for?_ I hadn’t allowed myself to wonder before now. It hadn’t mattered, really. It was just a task. A blip in the monotony of my life in service to him.

“Can’t speak to that.” I reply. “He only told me to come here and to return when I found the artifact.”

Now that the machine was humming again, I can feel the strange pull plucking at my thoughts. I examine it. It isn’t anything like the quiet that comes over me occasionally. Or like the intrusive visions or potential futures. It’s odd--oily. Demanding. Once I recognize it, I can almost see it. A cold spot. A dark stain on the calm and security of the rest of the temple. 

“Noticed it at last, have you?” The old master asks, stroking his chin. “I saw it come over you a moment ago. You nearly gave in to it.”

“I didn’t.” I immediately deny it. But he’s right. The resentment that had boiled up inside me hadn’t been my own. Not entirely. Something had stoked it. Twisted my thoughts.

The master just watches me with his deeply set eyes. Waits for whatever it is he’s expecting. 

“Is that where it is?” I ask, voice faint. “The holocron that contains what I need to know?”

“Only you can answer that.” He says gravely. “Tell me, Phoebe. What is it _you_ seek?”

“I didn’t tell you that name.” I whisper accusingly. “Stay out of my head.”

He doesn’t match my anger. Instead he drifts closer and speaks in the same calming voice he’s always used. “I was not looking into your thoughts, young Jedi. I only heard what you were thinking the loudest.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” I growl.

He extends a delicately boned hand and waves it blithely. “It is difficult to explain to one with so little training. Your frame of reference is limited by what your master has failed to teach you.”

I had never considered that. I had always been grateful for the long stretches when it seemed Kylo Ren had forgotten that I existed. His infrequent lessons and sparse attention was not something I considered a failing. 

“It is a dangerous thing,” the old master explains, “to be half-trained and powerful.”

“I’m not--”

  
But he doesn’t let me finish. “There are many iterations of the teachings you seek here in the Great Library. Which one it is that you need . . . that is up to you.”

I hesitate. Do I want the visions to be gone? Yes. The answer comes immediately, unwavering. But did I want to lose the rest of it, forever? Did I even truly know what that meant? I had never explored my own abilities, really. I had never been truly trained.

My tablet beeps. A message scrolls over its face: **_UPLOAD COMPLETE_**. With that, I have what Master needs from this temple. Clarity strikes like a shock from a frayed wire. I suck in a breath and turn to face the old master. “I have no idea.” I confess, “I have no idea what I need. How could I know?”

A smile blooms over the old man’s face. “Very good.”

I blink in surprise, rubbing at the tight joint at the bend of my elbow. “What do you mean?”

“Humility is an admirable trait in one so young.” He nods sagely. “Come.”

The old master leads me back on a looping, serpentine path. He points out helpful holocrons for me to load into my pack. Meditation, force push, and more of what he calls basic skills--all are plucked from the shelves by my helpful ghost. He even finds a few, more specialized recordings that discuss force visions.

By the time I reach the central plaza, my pack is heavy. But the retractable line is still dangling where I’d left it and it has no trouble pulling me up and into the crumbling shaft. With the old master’s spirit flitting up alongside me, the return isn’t as terrifying as the trip down had been. He follows along as I retrace my steps back toward the temple complex entrance. It isn’t until I’m lingering near the fallen doors that I realize he hasn’t crossed the divot in the sand that marks the threshold. 

“I didn’t pick up your holocron.” I realize. “I could go back, I have time.”

“I have done for you what I can, young Jedi.” He smiles, already fading from sight.

I don’t bother to correct him. Instead I mutter a thank you as he disappears into the morning sunlight spearing the entryway. 

I shift my heavy pack, wriggling my shoulders under the weight as I back out of the temple. The comforting presence of the force ebbs as I walk into the courtyard. My senses feel dampened. I’m trekking toward the dune where the _Stray Light_ set me down when I see a tall creature detach from the shadows of the ruins. He’s tall and armored, from what little I can make out of his silhouette.

_And armed_ , I add to myself as I watch him heft up a blaster. When it’s levelled with my chest he rasps, “Hand over the pack.”

I study him for a moment. My eyes adjust and I can make out a pair of scaly crests on top of his head. He flashes me his needle-like teeth when I take too long to respond. _Trandoshan_. I realize.

I wriggle my good arm free. As I set it at my feet, I ask, “What do you want with rations and junk?” 

“Nice try,” he hisses. His blaster doesn’t waver as he jerks his head toward the pack. “Search it.”

  
Another, stockier Trandoshan steps around me. His three-toed feet are sure footed on the sand as he flicks open my bag to reveal the collection of holocrons. The thieves crowd closer, surprised. 

_Must have followed me from the settlement and waited._ I realize. _They just expected the junk boss’ credits._

As one reaches out to touch the nearest holocron, I think fast. “You don’t want to do that.”

The taller thief scoffs, one of his thick fingers tightening on the trigger of his blaster. “No? Why not, scav?”

I shrug, lifting my hands in a show of passiveness. “They’re haunted. Unlucky to touch them if you’re not a Jedi or a Sith.”

The Trandoshan wheezes a laugh. “Superstition. I don’t believe that bantha shit.”

“No?” I ask, rocking my weight back and preparing myself. “You should.”

I move. My arm whips out to catch the burly thief in the throat. He coughs but hardly stumbles. I commit to the attack, swinging myself behind his bulk so that his friend can’t fire without risking hitting his accomplice. I grapple with the much larger creature. He may be slow, but one or two of his strikes will be enough to end the fight. I dart under another punch, careful not to stray too far and risk being picked off by the thief with the blaster.

The force seems dulled here. The abundance of it in the temple gave me a skewed sense of my abilities. As I hop back and narrowly avoid his swipe, I try desperately to pull the additional layer of possibilities over my vision. But the web is nowhere to be seen. I scream when the burly creature finally catches a hold of me, his giant hand clamping down tightly on my injured elbow.

I writhe, clawing and kicking like an animal as he struggles to pull me close enough to wrap an arm around my neck. _If he gets control of my head, it’s over._ I know it with that deep sense of certainty that comes with a premonition. _He’s going to try to snap my neck_. I bite down on any bit of him that I can reach, twisting myself until my legs are wrapped around his arm and shoulder. A weakness appears for a split second, long enough that I see just how to throw my weight to crack his shoulder out of joint. I splay his fingers wide and twist his arm with all my might.

He bellows as his arm goes limp and I’m dumped headlong into the sand. The screech of blaster fire comes a millisecond before the spot a span from my face erupts into a flash of heat and light. I roll back and spring to my feet in time to see the armed Trandoshan whip his blaster up. My world narrows to the sight of the light inside the barrel guttering as a new round charges.

Sound drops away, suddenly dulled as if someone has cupped their hands over my ears. A tug, this time in my mind instead of behind my navel. The voice comes again, calling me. But I can’t focus. _I’m about to die_ \--

My focus snaps back to the Trandoshan aiming the blaster at me. I slide my feet into a braced position and my hands come up, elbows bent and palms facing the creature. The shot fires . . . and freezes in place. I can hear it whine, jerking in place as if it’s caught in a short loop. The Trandoshan shouts in surprise or fear. The tug in my mind comes again and I drop my hands to one side, as if flinging the shot wide. It flies off, careening out into the desert.

“See?” I taunt the frightened thief. “You should have listened.”

A heavy blow to my head makes my vision double. The Trandoshans swim in and out of focus overhead as they circle me. _Are there two? Four?_ I can hear more of their croaking laughter as they call me Jedi scum.

“Mmm not--” I insist. “A ch-edi.”

“It’s half dead already. Finish it so we can cash out this haul.” The squatty one says, his arm still dangling uselessly at its side.

Before the tall one can respond, he flops suddenly to the sand. The shorter thief shouts in surprise, scrambling for the fallen blaster. But the crackle of an electro-staff comes again and the young temple guard appears over the twitching thief. He swings his weapon, warding the other Trandoshan off. 

He risks a look at me and barks in his thickly accented Basic, “Pick it up.”

I scrabble forward, pawing at the sand until I find the hot metal of the blaster’s barrel. I swing the weapon around but can’t focus well enough to aim. Sound drains away again and I can only hear my labored breathing and a strange ringing. Another figure appears, this time behind one of the blurry Trandoshans. He’s crisp. Clear where everything else is a painful smudge to my aching head.

He’s human, but not grimy like the temple guards. He’s huge, with broad shoulders and thick arms. He has a pale complexion and dark hair. Dark clothes. Dark eyes. I struggle to make out anything more. He’s angry. Shouting. But I can’t hear him. He disappears as I swing the blaster up, levelling it on the charging Trandoshan. 

I fire and it catches the stocky creature in the center of its chest. The long rifle kicks and I crumple to the sand. I can hear a scuffle. The hum of the staff and a pained cry. Twin suns sting my eyes as I struggle to stay conscious. _It would be very, very bad to sleep._ I try to remind myself, but everything is going fuzzy at the edges.

I’m barely alert when the young temple guardian’s face pops into view overhead. He offers me a hand up and I take it, the world careening wildly as he tugs me up out of the sand. My pack is on his shoulder. “Hey,” I mumble, struggling to see it but it’s difficult to raise my head from his shoulder. “Thass mine!”

He says nothing, shifting me until I’m tucked under his arm like a child. “Quiet.”

I groan. The suns have finally climbed high enough in the sky that they’re baking the sand. “It’s important.” I insist. I reach for the bag but he bats my hands down. Anger and fear spike and it feels like someone is pulling at my mind. Like a sharp tug on the hair that grows over the tender skin of my temple. I press the back of my hand to the spot. “Stop that.”

“After this,” the guardian mutters darkly, “I owe you nothing, crazy. A life for a life. The debt is repaid.”

“Okay.” I agree, struggling to support myself on pain-weakened legs as he tugs me further up the dune. “I just want to get off this planet.”

He grunts an agreement. Finally, he gives in and swings me over his shoulder. The bony ridge of his collarbone digs into my gut as he hikes up and up until we’ve crested the dune. From my vantage point, dangling and upside down, I can’t see the _Stray Light_ approach. I can only hear the overwhelming sound of its engines as it settles nearby. Sand whips up furiously, stinging my eyes. I squeeze them shut but can’t find the strength to open them again.

Pzas’s voice, brassy with alarm, is the last thing I hear before everything fades to black.


End file.
